Chicana on the Edge

Half-birthday

2012-01-24T05:14:00.008-06:00

Today I am exactly 45 and a half years old. In this photo I am three years old and my sister, Judy, is two (I have just one sibling). At this time, we lived in Los Angeles, California USA, but we were visiting a snow-covered Mt. Wilson, which is in Los Angeles County, but (clearly) at a much higher elevation. It was March 21, 1970 (impressively, my parents put dates on the backs of all photos. Now I do, too).

We're sitting on a picnic table piled with snow. The ground is also covered and Judy is holding a fledgling snowball. I wonder what she did with it. Another reason you can tell we're not in L.A. is that we never wore boots and mittens like that in Los Angeles (ha!). That was our serious snow attire.

Yes, Judy was the cute one. In my face you can see the beginnings of worry and overfunctioning and in my hair you can see an early stage of the mane. I had great hair for the 1980s, but then the '80s ended...

Sopa, not SOPA

2012-01-19T06:28:00.005-06:00

Yesterday's actions against the Stop Online Piracy Act legislation seem to have been effective. I like to think Cindylu's blog, Loteria Chicana, did its part, too. Cindylu created this excellent photo. I love it! Please see her blog for the explanation.

Blood

2012-01-17T10:32:00.005-06:00

My first and only trip out of the United States happened between August 28th and September 10th, 2010. One more reason to regret going was that traveling in Peru and Bolivia prevented me from donating blood for a whole year. I hated that.

Last night, for the first time since July 2010, I gave blood. It was great. I had tried to make an appointment a couple of times since September 2011, but last night I finally got past all the obstacles that had kept me from it and bled!

I like giving blood because it’s one way you can save lives when it’s convenient for you (rather than plunging into the cold to beat off an attack when you’d rather stay in bed asleep, for instance). My dad worked in a hospital for decades and I remember seeing him come home with the “Be Nice to Me, I Gave Blood” sticker. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to start giving.

In fact, I took the first chance I got as a freshman in college. I didn't quite make the 110-pound weight minimum, but I didn’t care. I wanted to give so badly I lied to the intake nurse who looked at me doubtfully. Giving blood felt fine and I gobbled cookies and juice with joy afterwards.

Later in my English class, I didn’t feel so great, but in decades of giving blood, I never had that reaction again. I gained weight quickly in the U.C. Berkeley dorms and have stayed well above 110 pounds ever since (OH yeah, no problem).

Why would anyone turn down the chance to save up to three lives when it costs you nothing and you can do it in your spare time, whenever your schedule allows?

Donate blood, damn it. If you can’t, go recruit someone who can. It's a wonderful thing to do, plus you never know when it’ll be you bleeding on the pavement.

Dogs don't need this stuff

2012-01-15T06:30:00.004-06:00

When we first got our dog from the shelter last fall, we took him to the veterinarian. Among other things, I asked if a lean, short-haired dog like Ozzie would need protection from the weather. Should we get him a coat or some shoes? She said no. Dogs don't need weather protection.

I like how a veterinarian put it who was interviewed for National Public Radio. She said, "I've never seen a dog with a condition that made me think if only this dog had been wearing shoes."

That's good enough for me. Even in 10F/-12C degrees, Ozzie will go "barefoot" and "naked." I just keep him moving and keep the walk short.

Hostess Snack Cakes in trouble

2012-01-12T12:20:00.007-06:00

Yesterday Hostess filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I suggest one of the following responses:

"Thank goodness. If we can finally get rid of that junk food, so much the better."

"Quick, go out and eat some Hostess snack cakes. It's for the good of the American economy!"

I'm leaning towards the second one.

(After you read the article, let me know who the heck would build their wedding cake out of Twinkies.)

If the world were ending...

2012-01-07T09:19:00.002-06:00

But if the world really were going to be destroyed in December 2012, what would you spend the next year doing? I like this question because it precludes all that "leaving your mark" crap or preparing others for when you're gone. In this scenario, we'll all be gone.

So let's say you, and only you, know that the world is guaranteed to end on, say, 31 December 2012. What would you spend the time doing, knowing that there's no question of leaving anything or anyone behind?

I'd spend the time focusing on my friends, family and dog. I'd probably also eat everything in sight. At the end of the year, Bob and I would blow our savings and 401k's on some incredible four-week vacation. Then we'd all die. (Bob says we should do this anyway.) My aunt pointed out that if the world doesn't end after all, this would leave me broke and fat. True, and sadly I think that's what happened to some people who fully believed they were going to heaven last May 21st.

But let's say it's guaranteed to end. Most of my friends who I've asked have said they'd spend the year traveling. Maybe that's a typical answer. What would you do?

Free time with my husband

2012-01-07T09:05:00.006-06:00

One of the odd things about my marriage is how little our work schedules sync up. We don't even have the same days off. I work a regular paper-pushing job with business hours. Bob works in a restaurant that's open 365 days a year (no holidays off) and his days off are Tuesday and Wednesday.

This works out well for our dog, Ozzie, who's rarely alone compared to most dogs owned by fully employed people. Four days a week he has a whole human to himself, and Bob and I tend to spend lots of time in the apartment. Two days a week Bob often works the second shift, so Bob might leave Ozzie around 10a or 11a and then I'm home by 6:00p. Only on Mondays do Bob and I both leave early. Mondays are long for Ozzie, but we have a dog walker who he likes.

This scheduling problem doesn't work out so well for our marriage. The last time Bob and I had the same day off was in November, and that was our first day off together since August. We only have days off together if I use my vacation days, which I'm planning to do again soon. That one Friday we both had off in November was a total miraculous fluke and we were going to take full advantage of it only I came down with bronchitis (that was my first full day of crappiness).

Life!

So watch this space for the exciting announcement of when Bob and I are going to spend a Tuesday and Wednesday together, every second, for 48 hours! I can't wait.

Consolation

2012-01-02T17:39:00.003-06:00

The Christmas season is over and I often feel sad during the first few days of January, but this year I don't. It's possible that coming down with bronchitis during the long Thanksgiving weekend and then taking weeks to recover from the resulting pneumonia had an effect on my Christmas spirit. I notice that because the holidays didn't grab as much of my attention, their departure doesn't feel like as big a loss as it has other years.

I'm also more grateful than ever for Chicago's cold weather. Now that I have to walk a dog most days of the week, I've become even more sensitive to the negative effects of sunlight and heat. I dread summer, when going outdoors causes me a sun rash (different from a burn). Walking our new dog last September, and during that warm October, was a big, uncomfortable drag. But when the days get short and the sun recedes from the northern hemisphere and the temperatures drop, walking outside becomes much more comfortable for me.

I also like how much quieter the city is when the air is frigid. Not only does crime go down when temperatures drop, but far fewer idiots hold their arguments outside at 2:00 a.m. in February than in July. People close their windows, hold their parties indoors and do a lot less standing around outside, talking and shouting. Winter is my reprieve from the general city noise of people who refuse to go inside and be quiet unless it's colder than 40 degrees F.

Winter is quieter and darker in Chicago than it can ever even approach in my home state of California. That's why I moved here 18 years ago. I love Midwestern winter.

It's not hard to let go of the sparkling celebration of the winter holidays for me. Sure the big party is over, but at least I have four or five months ahead of me before the heat comes back. Ahhhh, winter. My favorite.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T09:46:00.005-06:00

Here's the payoff for getting a dog that eats everything he can get his snout on: as activity outside our first floor, Chicago apartment gets weirder this weekend, he's there for me. A 45-pound pitbull mix can be a strangely comforting thing, especially on New Year's Eve.

How was Christmas?

2011-12-29T07:30:00.006-06:00

Christmas Eve:

Bob worked. I had dinner in Niles at the Omega Restaurant with friends. When I got home, Bob called and said that in the course of his job (in the restaurant industry) he'd been forced into a physical confrontation. Sadly as a result, Bob was in the emergency room on Christmas Eve from 8:30p to 3:00a. Emergency rooms are busy on Saturday nights and they're also busy on Christmas Eves, but they're busiest on Saturday nights that are Christmas Eves. It was awful. He just sat there for hours while more serious cases went ahead of him. But the x-rays were inconclusive, so it's more pain meds for him.

The other Christmas Eve drama was that Ozzie broke into a plastic Ziploc container of homemade gingerbread cookies and ate all of them. I know Ozzie has gotten very good at pulling things off counters and opening them, so this was my fault. I should have put that box in the fridge before leaving to have dinner (he only does this stuff when we're not home). So it was a good Christmas Eve for him! He was in a good mood when I got home.

Fortunately, there were only about eight cookies in there, not dozens, and they didn't have chocolate in them, which is toxic to dogs. I told him, "I hope you enjoyed your Christmas treat because those were the last cookies you're going to see for a long time."

Christmas Day:

Bob worked. I MC-ed a Christmas luncheon for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly. It went very well and I had a great time. I told jokes and stories, riffed, ad libbed, involved the attendees and later my friend Ceece (who’s development director for LBFE) said they liked me.

It turns out that the jokes that don't amuse me, were the ones they liked. The jokes that I laughed at when I first heard them, they didn't like as much. This taught me that I must have West Coast humor that is quite different from Midwest humor or maybe it's a generational difference. Anyway, Bob's joke about a talking bird went over BIG. They loved it. My joke about drinking and driving bombed. They also liked this one a lot:

Why does Santa like to garden?
Because he likes to ho ho ho.

This one didn't get much of a reaction, although I thought it was very funny:
Before I judge a man, I'll walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets mad, he'll be a mile away and have no shoes on.

Lesson #1: do not trust my sense of humor. If I do a gig like that again I'm going to ask MY HUSBAND for jokes. Ceece confirmed that the elders prefer simpler jokes. If I do this again I'll definitely use more Bob jokes.

I was in charge of making announcements, introducing the guitarist/singer, running the raffle and leading the sparkling cider toast. The Christmas toast was challenging since I don’t believe in God or family or hope or anything. In fact, I forgot to write the toast, and came up with this in the minutes before the party began:

"No matter what we've each been through in the past year, no matter what happened or didn't happen, here's to the things for which we are grateful and to the truth that if you think long enough, you can always find something in the past year that got better."

It worked.

Lesson #2: Keep moving. I like serving food or MC-ing but not sitting around. Being on my feet feels great because I spend so much time sitting at my regular job.

On Christmas night, Ceece and I drove out to the suburbs and took Ozzie for a walk in a brightly decorated area. Being a dog, he ignored the beautiful lights and kept his nose to the ground, fascinated by foreign (to him) soil. He peed on many lawns, but did not poop, which I thought was very respectful of him.

I hope everyone had at least as pleasant a Christmas as me and Ozzie, even though I know that's impossible. And yes, Bob is feeling a bit better today than on the day of his adventure.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:39:00.001-06:00

The Evil Christmas Dog says, "Merry Christmas!"

How to avoid visiting family for the holidays, without lying

2011-12-23T08:59:00.005-06:00

This is merely a public service. I am not talking about the family I just visited last weekend (uh, hi Dad). Family gatherings are often fun and pleasant. This post is just for those few people who have family they'd rather avoid.

1. If you have a job with vacation days, use them all up before the holidays and tell your family you have to work.

2. If you're flying, give up your seat when they ask for volunteers to accommodate stand-by passengers. Ask the stand-by person who's getting your seat to give their best sob story so you can tell your family how their need was greater than yours.

3. Start volunteering with an organization that's active on Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas Day, etc. Make a commitment to help out on the holiday and then tell your family you can't possibly let down the children or the elderly or the botanical plants or whatever.

4. Start a serious, long-term relationship and divide your holiday time with your partner's family. Warning: this only works if their family is not as bad as yours.

5. Leave food out that is easily spoiled (mayonnaise, raw chicken, etc.). Eat it about 12 hours before you're supposed to leave. Call to cancel your visit when you're at the height of the food poisoning symptoms.

6. Tell those family members who you'd rather not see, exactly why you will not be visiting. This won't be an easy conversation, but it will be honest and might help them look at themselves in a new way. At worst, they'll stop talking to you and then you'll be all set for next year.

Good luck and Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Not-Mexico-but-not-really-the-US-either

2011-12-22T17:48:00.002-06:00

I just learned that the fence that separates Mexico from the U.S. doesn't actually run along the Mexico-U.S. border. According to a post on The Lookout, a news blog, the Rio Grande forms the natural boundary between the two countries, but because of a treaty with Mexico that prohibits building in the Rio Grande floodplain, the U.S. border fence stands more than a mile north of the official borderline and thousands of Americans live in that isolated strip of land. They live south of the U.S-Mexico border wall, but are still geographically inside the United States. For some of them, the fence divides their property. For all of them, the fence has drastically lowered the value of their homes.

The border wall as it stands now has gaps of several feet placed almost randomly along it. Some landowners use those gaps to get to their property. Now the government is considering sealing those gaps, which will require a solution that will allow property owners to still be able to access their land. This will be the residents' fourth Christmas with the fence. Increíble.

My perfect Christmas

2011-12-19T09:09:00.002-06:00

Okay, it's not my perfect Christmas, since I won't spend it with my husband, but it's the next best thing.

Bob's working Christmas Day because his restaurant is open every day of the year. I spent Easter and Thanksgiving volunteering with Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly, serving dinner to people without other plans. LBFE provides companionship to elderly in Chicago who would otherwise spend holidays and birthdays alone. But LBFE doesn't need as many volunteers for their Christmas dinners, so I didn't know what I was going to do. Bob hates the idea of me being alone on Christmas with nothing to do, although I'm okay with the idea. I've done it before, knocking around Chicago by myself, taking myself out to dinner on Christmas Day. It's very peaceful (have you ever spent Christmas alone with nothing to do?).

Then LBFE called to ask if I could help out after all! At their northside Christmas dinner (there are several dinner locations that day) they said they needed people to help our elderly guests get from the car to their seat at the dinner table and back again at the end. I happily said yes, relieved won't be alone on Christmas, after all.

And then the LBFE staff member mentioned that they need a master of ceremonies for that location. That means standing in front of a big room full of strangers, welcoming everyone to the occasion, introducing the entertainment, running the Christmas raffle and then thanking everyone for coming. Can you guess what I said?

I'm going to be a Christmas MC! It's like a dream come true. I love being the center of attention, being witty and making up what I'm going to say on the spot. And, of course, I love being part of a celebration, especially Christmas. I'll be like the host of a huge party that I don't have to cook for. That's why I said this will be my perfect Christmas. I'm going to totally dress up and look as festive and gorgeous as possible.

Would you do it? Bob would never do it.

Besides that, it'll be me and our dog Ozzie. We'll go for a nice Christmas walk to see the decorated building and homes. I'll probably sing carols to him as we go, but he doesn't get any special treats on that day. This dog has a very delicate stomach and I do not want to spend any part of my holiday at the emergency animal clinic. It's dog food and more dog food for him.

Things I've learned about dogs recently

2011-12-15T17:28:00.000-06:00

1. During my battle with bronchitis in the weeks after Thanksgiving, I discovered that our pitbull mix, Ozzie, will stay next to me no matter how much I cough, hack and sweat on him. He's my first dog ever and this is his third month with us. I'm amazed by how this animal behaves. He likes being near the humans no matter what, actually in physical contact. Ozzie amazes me with his sociability. I really never knew anything about dogs before and I'll probably spend the rest of Ozzie's life trying to understand, or at least accept, their uniqueness among the animals.

2. We totally saved Ozzie's life. The more I read about shelter dogs, the more it sinks in that Ozzie was in a very bad situation: not only was he living with a hundred other unhappy dogs in less than ideal conditions, but he has the main traits that make dogs UN-adoptable: he's an adult, he's not a purebred, he has pitbull in him and he's black. He was doomed! (Black cats and dogs take the longest to get adopted.) Bob and I totally did our good deed for life by taking him. Ozzie needed a home and Bob needed a dog, so it worked out.

3. There's a long literary tradition of using "black dog" to refer to depression. This is ironic because I suffer from depression and the idea of inviting in its icon into my home is as amusing as it is disturbing.

4. I'm beginning to genuinely like our dog. I had a lot of doubts for the first couple of months, including during my illness when I suspected that he had brought me a bacterial infection (humans can't transmit illnesses to dogs, but they can transmit them to us!). But now that we're all healthy again, I'm finally beginning to relax. Ozzie is still an alien to me, but he's not so bad, plus he makes my husband 100% happier. The little dog, as I often call our 45-pound pitbull mix, is beginning to rub off on me.

5. Purebred dogs are damn expensive and "puppy mills" often create health-compromised puppies who aren't socialized or trained or anything. Pet stores are often stocked with puppy mill dogs. I'm beginning to agree that there's no reason at all to get a dog from a pet store or breeder while there are millions of animals being killed in shelters every year because no one wants them. Shelter dogs need you and they're cheap. Many shelters have puppies and purebreds, at least periodically. Of course, mutts are great because they're unique, often are more even-tempered and don't have the health problems purebreds have. Heck, I'm a mutt as most Americans are.

6. Pitbulls usually live 10 or 12 years, but sometimes they make it to fifteen! Ozzie is between 3 and 4 years old, so I might be in my late 50s by the time he finally kicks off. This isn't good news to someone who's not good with long-term commitment, although I've gotten better since I got married. Okay, here we go...

“Isn’t There Anyone Who Knows What Christmas Is All About?"

2011-12-10T08:03:00.011-06:00

[I originally posted this on January 5, 2006. I'm running it again, with slight editing. The title refers to Charlie Brown's plaintive cry as he tries to reconcile his "commercial dog" with the party atmosphere of his play rehearsals and the original nativity story.]

Recently I watched the History Channel's Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas. Here’s my summary of the program which I found extremely relevant to the annual discussion of the true meaning of Christmas. The following historical facts are from the History Channel program, but the opinionated statements are mine.

Christmas Started Without Jesus

It turns out that early Europeans were observing a winter solstice celebration centuries before Jesus was even born. In Norse country it was called “Yule” and it lasted for as long as the enormous “Yule log” took to burn, which was about twelve days. In preparation for the cold, dark season people would kill almost all their livestock since they couldn’t feed them through the winter. The feasting and general revelry that resulted became the annual Yule celebration.

In Rome the winter solstice marked the period known as “Saturnalia.” During this festival people drank, behaved raucously and generally overturned the normal social order. While this was going on, the upper classes of Rome worshipped Mithras, the sun god, whose feast day was December 25th. Mithras was also believed to have been born in a field and worshipped by shepherds.

In fact, the early Christians didn’t even celebrate Jesus’ birth, focusing on his resurrection (which makes a lot more sense to me). But by the fourth century the new Church needed to establish Jesus’ holy birth, so it began to put together the nativity story. It knew it would never manage to outlaw the pagan traditions already in place, so it appropriated them and that’s how December 25th became Jesus’ feast day.

It Had More Sex Than Saints

In England during the middle ages, the pious went to church on December 25th for “Christ’s mass,” but most of the population just carried on as it always had on that day. For those who celebrated, Christmas was a festival of drunken revelry and sexual activity that would look more to us like Mardi Gras or New Year’s Eve. It was a saturnalian free-for-all with little connection to Jesus except in name.

By the 17th century the Puritans had had enough of this and they made attempts to outlaw Christmas in both England and the New World. These devout people saw Christmas as a depraved tradition that had to be stopped. It didn’t work, but the holiday was greatly downplayed for a long time, as evidenced by the U.S. Congress being in session on all Christmas Days for its first 67 years.

America Needed a Tradition

When the United States were established in 1776, the early Americans wanted to rid themselves of all things English, including Christmas. But over time they also needed new culturally shared holidays and a reinvention of Christmas was on the horizon.

One new aspect of the American Christmas was how it addressed the growing class divide of the industrial U.S. In the early 1800’s the holiday became quite dangerous as working class people turned it into a time of violent payback for the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots. In response to growing economic imbalances, writers like Washington Irving and Charles Dickens created works of fiction that instilled a spirit of generosity and demonstrated sharing wealth with the poor. These popular stories gave the upper classes guidance about what their responsibility was to those who had less and established “giving” as a central Christmas theme. Christmas now gave people a chance to correct some of the socioeconomic unfairness of newly industrialized America.

The view of the family was also changing. Traditionally, the American family was supposed to discipline children and turn them into hard workers, but by the end of the 19th century the family was seen more as a nurturing body that protected childhood innocence. Christmas, with its emphasis on giving gifts, allowed people to pour attention on children without seeming to spoil them. The holiday became a celebration of children, honoring them with presents and sharing in their joy.

Why Shopping Is Central

The creation of Santa Claus in the mid-1800's did a few things: it reinforced the idea that Christmas distributes wealth, it solidified the focus on children and it removed gift-buying from the marketplace and placed it in the realm of family love and affection. Shopping became an expression of love. This diminished the obvious commercialism of gift-buying and obliged parents to fulfill their children’s expectations. Thus did shopping become the central activity of the Christmas season.

But Where Was God?

By the late 1800’s Christmas was just about everywhere, except in church. In fact, the author of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas was an Episcopalian minister who initially kept his authorship a secret because he thought the poem was too friviolous; after all, it didn’t mention Jesus once. The celebration of Jesus’ birth was an established part of the Catholic tradition, but for quite a while American Protestant churches pretty much ignored it. For decades they stayed closed on December 25th until their parishioners made clear that they wanted services on that day.

So much for Jesus’ birth being the original reason we have Christmas. December 25th was initially part of a pagan festival that morphed into a holiday of gift-giving that American churches didn’t want anything to do with until almost the 20th century. There was no golden age during which most people observed Christmas primarily as a holy day. That idea is as much a myth as Santa Claus. Sorry Charlie Brown, but Snoopy's not off target: Christmas is as much about the big decorated tree as it is about the manger.

Does Christmas Even Need Jesus?

By the 1920’s all of the sex and revelry were gone from Christmas and by the 1950’s it was all about kids and presents. So, where does Jesus fit into this again? Clearly a spiritual focus is appropriate since religious services recall the need to connect with a greater power. In the centuries before Christ, people needed to believe they’d survive the winter and they worshipped the sun as their source of life. Modern Christians worship the son of God, whom they recognize as the source of life.

But for as long as December 25th has been recognized as Jesus’ feast day, there have been lots of other activities going on at the same time. If Christmas were really just about Jesus, the holiday wouldn’t occupy public space as it does. Strictly religious holy days tend to be observed only by those who practice that faith. Our grand scale yuletide traditions -- big decorations, big eating, big shopping -- support the religious significance of the day, but they don’t really engage it.

Pick Your Own True Meaning

The History Channel’s program ends with the observation that only children understand what Christmas is really about: pure joy and celebration, and the magic and mystery of opening gifts. That’s why, even as grown ups, we often experience a moment of delight when we see a Santa truly in his role or glimpse a dazzling light display. Such moments take us back to our childhood and the unadulterated awe and glory that Christmas held for us then. Our American Christmas tradition was tailor-made for children and they are critical to its magic.

Sooo...the true meaning of Christmas includes Jesus, but today it's just as much about children and gift-giving. There has really never been a time during which people treated December 25th as a solemn holy day. In fact, the drunken orgy it used to be caused the Puritans to try to stamp it out altogether. This is why, although Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, it's just as much about decorations, kids and presents as it is about God, an interesting outcome for a holiday with a rich pagan history of drunkenness, gluttony and sex. I know when I tell someone "Merry Christmas," it has nothing to do with Christianity. I'm just wishing them a really good season of partying.

Target Clinic misdiagnosed me

2011-12-01T10:44:00.004-06:00

I started feeling achy on the day before Thanksgiving. I felt so crappy (achiness, fever, headache, chest congestion, horrible cough, alternate chills and sweats), that I went to a Target store health clinic on Sunday where a nurse practitioner told me it was the flu so I should stay in bed and drink fluids. When I felt equally crappy on Tuesday, I called my real doctor. On Wednesday night she identified it as bronchitis, with a touch of pneumonia and prescribed me antibiotics and an inhaler because my lungs were working at about half capacity. I was not breathing well and can't move very fast or I can't get enough oxygen. She tested me for flu, but I never had it at all.

I wish I could have started these antibiotics on Sunday. I'd probably be at work right now. I've been keeping my boss updated, although I don't feel proud to say that I accepted a bad diagnosis that prolonged my illness. The inhaler is helping a little and I'm waiting for the antibiotics to take effect. I'm still feverish and sweaty.

Can I sue Target?

Why I'm enjoying my nasty flu

2011-11-29T13:26:00.000-06:00

1. I keep alternating between chills and sweats, so things stay interesting.
2. I'm cheaply getting through a week without needing any real groceries (just juice and symptom relievers).
3. Caught up on all my TiVo'd programs by the third day of the illness.
4. I'm doing a lot of just laying still and staring at walls, which I don't get to do nearly enough.
5. Great excuse to not do any housework, but instead shuffle through an increasingly disgusting apartment.
6. Allows me to practice my laser focus driving, so I can safely get myself to a clinic or doctor's office through my fever and haziness (husband's out of town).
7. I'm catching up on my reading.
8. I'm catching up on my hydrating.
9. I'm catching up on my coughing.
10. If the fever gets high enough, my brain will shut off, which is the only time it ever does.

If anyone wants to join me in sickness, come on over. This thing started last Wednesday, but half an hour ago my fever was still 102.4.

Singlehood and marriage are getting better for women..and worse

2011-11-24T17:56:00.001-06:00

It's the article that everyone has blogged about and discussed, and I know I'm about two months late, but I still want to make some notes. If you want a nuanced reading of Kate Bolick's All the Single Ladies, which came out in the November 2011 Atlantic, please go here somewhere. All I'm presenting here are the passages in this long, but fascinating article, that I highlighted. Words in italics are quotes from Bolick's article:

The decision to end a stable relationship for abstract rather than concrete reasons ("something was missing") I see now is in keeping with a post-Boomer ideology that values emotional fulfillment above all else.

Of Stephanie Coontz, social historian and author of Marriage: A History from Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage:
She'd long known that the Leave It to Beaver-style family model popular in the 1950s and '60s had been a flash in the pan, and like a lot of historians, she couldn't understand how people had become so attached to an idea that had developed so late and been so short-lived.

Of how married couples functioned before the Beaver years: [t]wo-income families were the norm.

Here are the main ways Bolick sees American straight marriage and heterosexual dynamics fundamentally shifting (the numbers and words not in italics are mine):

1. We keep putting marriage off. (That is, the common age of marriage keeps increasing.)

2. We no longer need husbands to have children, nor do we have to have children if we don't want to.

3.Over the past half-century, women have steadily gained on - and are in some ways surpassing - men in education and employment.

4. ...men have been rapidly declining - in income, in educational attainment, and in future employment prospects - relative to women.

5. If, in all sectors of society women are on the ascent, and if general parity is actually within reach, this means that a marriage regime based on men's overwhelming economic dominance may be passing into extinction.

6. ...American women as a whole have never been confronted with such a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be "marriageable" men - those who are better educated and earn more than they do.

7. In their 1983 book, Too Many Women? The Sex Ratio Question, two psychologists developed what has become known as the Guttentag-Secord theory which holds that members of the gender in shorter supply are less dependent on their partners because they have a greater number of alternative relationships available to them. (Bolick points out that in societies where women are in short supply, relationships are characterized by the valuing of motherhood, homemaking and marriage. In societies where men are in short supply, there are more illegitimate children and higher divorce rates.)

8. ...the more successful a man is (or thinks he is), the less interested he is in commitment.

9. Today, with the precipitous economic and social decline of men of all races, it's easy to see why women of any race would feel frustrated by their romantic prospects. (Is it any wonder marriage rates have fallen?)

10. Of her own singledom, Bolick writes, If I stopped seeing my present life as provisional, perhaps I'd be a little...happier. Perhaps I could actually get down to the business of what it means to be a real single woman.

11. Singlism..."matrimania"...Those who don't want [marriage] are seen as threatening.

12. Our cultural fixation on the couple is actually a relatively recent development...Indeed, [Helen] Fisher sees the contemporary trend for marriage between equals as us "moving forward into deep history" - back to the social and sexual relationships of millions of years ago.

13. Some even believe that the pair bond, far from strengthening communities (which is both the prevailing view of social science and a central tenet of social conservatism), weakens them, the idea being that a married couple becomes too consumed with its own tiny nation of two to pay much heed to anyone else...unlike singles, married couples spend less time keeping in touch with and visiting their friends and extended family, and are less likely to provide them with emotional and practical support. (Mmhm.)

14. Coontz points out that two of the hallmarks of contemporary marriage are demands for monogamy on an equal basis, and candor. "Throughout history, there was a fairly high tolerance of [men's] extramarital flings, with women expected to look the other way," she said. "Now we have to ask: Can we be more monogamous? Or understand that flings happen?"

15. ...real change can seldom take hold when economic forces remain static. The extraordinary economic flux we're in is what makes this current moment so distinctive.

16. Bolick quotes Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex at Dawn: "In every society where women have power - whether humans or primates, the key is female bonding."

And those are what struck me as the passages worth highlighting.

Protester quote is more relevant to some than others

2011-11-15T12:22:00.001-06:00

My dad visited the Occupy protesters in Oakland, California on Sunday, before they cleared out. This was my favorite part of his report:

I did pick up one poetic gem yesterday. A large oak tree on the side of the encampment was roped off, with a nice sign that said to keep out in order to take care of the tree. A hand scrawled sign hanging on the fence stated, "An oak tree is just a nut that decided to hold its ground." I like that.

I wrote back to him: On behalf of nuts everywhere, thanks for sharing that quote!

A single woman's Thanksgiving

2011-11-10T19:42:00.001-06:00

As a woman who didn't marry until 41 and who doesn't live in a state that contains anyone I'm related to, I have experience spending holidays alone. Sometimes I minded, sometimes I didn't. I became very self-reliant and learned to find things to do whether it was hosting my own party, finding someone to host me or just taking myself out for a lovely meal.

In 2008 I got married, guaranteeing that I'd never spend another holiday alone -- almost. Okay, not even close. My husband has had a 33-year career in the service industry and now works in a restaurant that's open 365 days a year (except for leap years, when it's open 366).

I did three years as a server, so I'm sympathetic to Bob's situation. In fact, I'm going to join him by spending the day feeding people, only I'll do it for free. Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly is a great organization that a friend of mine works for. They provide companionship for Chicagoans over the age of 70 who don't have friends or family in the area. LBFE elders get regular visits and/or social invitations and they are all invited to major holiday celebrations.

Bob began his current job last April and I felt amused to find myself in the old position of spending holidays solo. I volunteered with LBFE on Easter Sunday and it went very well. I enjoyed serving at a big party, felt that good exhaustion of energy well spent and my participation kept me from feeling left out. Bob's very lucky he married a woman who's used to functioning as a single person on holidays, and who does it so well.

I'll do it again this Thanksgiving: spending hours on my feet, surrounded by people I don't know, enjoying a nice meal and feeling glad to be part of a celebration. Plus LBFE really appreciates their volunteers because if it weren't for us, these parties couldn't happen. The Chicago branch of LBFE runs three Thanksgiving celebrations on that day, which rely on hundreds of volunteers. I'll be at the far northside location.

Is anyone else in Chicago free on Thanksgiving? Want to serve turkey to people who will really appreciate it? I know most people have solid plans on that day, but maybe you know someone who would be alone. If so, pass on the idea of joining me.

Bob will certainly be working on December 25th, so guess what I'm doing on Christmas Day?

Who still trusts in God?

2011-11-08T23:09:00.002-06:00

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, What's God Got to Do with It? Michael Shermer reports that last week the House of Representatives voted to keep "In God We Trust" as the national motto. He writes that Congress originally adopted the phrase in 1956 when many Americans were afraid of godless communism taking over the country, but Mr. Shermer asks what the reason is for keeping it now. He argues that since we're no longer fixated on communism and 90% of Americans solidly believe in either God or a greater spiritual presence, there's no need to keep this phrase stamped into our coins and buildings.

I say there's more reason than ever to keep "In God We Trust" imprinted on the American imagination: because we're terrified.

I was raised Catholic, but weaned myself from it while an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley (it happens). While I no longer think there are gods or spirits, I've remained conflicted about the value of religion itself. Before I settled into atheism, I went from the Catholic church to a gospel choir to a synagogue to a Unity Church and then back to Catholicism. I have believed and I have believed. Having faith got me a community, a place in the believing majority of Americans, a sense of safety in the world, and the feeling that if I followed all the rules, I would be okay.

Following all the rules, no matter which version of god I used, did not guarantee my safety and I eventually dumped it all out the window, but I sometimes envy those who know "He's got the whole world in His hands." Religion isn't just a blanket to clutch in the night; it's a point of contact for human companionship and love. It's a shared history and life view that gains you access to a global community. And, yes, it provides a powerful source of comfort when you lose your job or a family member or just feel overwhelmed by life. Religion is a beautiful thing.

Sure, it's caused countless wars and bloodshed, but humans would do that no matter what. We can't blame religion for our violence. Many conflicts are called religious, when the true problem is land rights or other forms of control. Being human causes violence, not religion.

Michael Shermer has also considered the timeless question of why a benevolent being would allow endless suffering and he mentions it as he argues against the continued use of "In God We Trust." But Mr. Shermer, you won't get anywhere using logic because trusting in God isn't rational and, in these hysterical days, reason often makes less sense than ever.

But if you need one, Mr. Shermer, here's a rational reason for the motto: research shows that people with a spiritual belief system survive life-threatening circumstances better than those who don't believe. Believers have a greater ability to make sense of tragedy and overcome adversity. Now I don't think that I, as an atheist, am at greater risk of dying in the street than my Christian cohorts, but I accept that I'm not as emotionally resilient or content with life as they. The world is scarier to me, but unfortunately, after all my faith-hunting, my brain is too rational and focused on the unresolvable parts of religion to find peace in another spiritual practice.

We feel like the ground has disappeared beneath us, Mr. Shermer. That's why we still need to trust in God. Of course Congress wants to drum this motto into our hearts and minds, now more than at any time since 1956, when it was adopted. If we don't trust in God, what have we got? An unpredictable, unfair world of endless pain and inexplicable circumstances. I as an atheist know that bad things happen to good people because life is godless and random and there are no payoffs for good behavior. But most Americans can't accept that and to swallow it would be the last gulp before they go under. So sure, let's say we trust in God because, at this point, that faith might be the only thing holding many of us together.

Stigma against black dogs - who knew?

2011-11-06T14:21:00.008-06:00

I just read this article online: Black Dogs Face a Hard Choice at Shelter. It discusses how shelter dogs that happen to be black (at least in the U.S.) have a really hard time getting adopted because so many people don't want a "BBD" or big black dog. Guesses for this stigma (although this article doesn't go into this) are that black dogs are too ordinary-looking, are believed to be more aggressive or are associated with depression and bad luck. Winston Churchill referred to his depression as his "black dog" and the use of that term for a troubled mind goes back centuries.

I can't believe it. Blackness was one of my dog criteria. I wanted a dog that was black so it wouldn't mess up my dark clothing with its light-colored hairs. Ozzie is perfect for that. And he's playful, calm, friendly and rarely even barks.

What a damn shame that prejudice against blackness even applies to animals, but it makes me even more proud that we picked Ozzie. So, if you ever get a dog, please consider a shelter dog who's black.

This also explains why people sometimes see me and Ozzie coming down the sidewalk and say, "Oh, shit!" their eyes widening in fear. And yes, they're looking at the dog, not at me, okay?

Hamsters vs. dogs

2011-11-06T10:42:00.004-06:00

Bob stood in the kitchen, getting a drink of water. Ozzie stood in the kitchen, staring at him.

Me: So you don't mind him staring at you right now?
Bob: Nope. You know why?
Me: Why?
Bob: Because he's a dog and that's what dogs do.
Me: You know what doesn't stare at you? Hamsters. Hamsters never follow you all around, staring at you. Even when they're not in their cage, they could care less about what you're doing.
Bob: Hamsters don't love you.
Me: Exactly!

My various experiences of love have not all been good and I remain suspicious and fearful of it. Animals that don't love me are perfectly fine.

Arbonne

2011-10-26T14:45:00.006-05:00

This is my latest fixation: Arbonne cosmetics. My skin is so sensitive that it reacts adversely to direct sunlight (another reason I dislike summer), but so far these products are working for me. They absorb nicely and don't cause any redness or itching, as so many lotions and chemical-based products do.

No, I'm not getting anything for promotion. I just wanted an upbeat and cheerful post and this week Arbonne is lifting my spirits. A friend invited me to an Arbonne party on Oct. 16th and I was the perfect guest: I'm a 45-year-old woman who owns almost zero skin products because of my hyper-sensitive skin, but who has been wondering what I can do to age gracefully. By the time the demonstration was over I was placing an order for their Skin Conditioning Oil, some face moisturizers and a couple of cosmetic items. My skin is drier than my sense of humor, so even hand creams feel like nothing to me. I have to go straight to oils, and so far Arbonne's Skin Conditioning Oil is working pretty well for me.

I embrace my middle-age-itude. I'm happy to wear neck scarves and comfortable shoes and to apply four creams and lotions before bedtime. Ah, getting old!

even less a dog lover

2011-10-23T17:14:00.007-05:00

Ozzie, the four-year-old pitbull mix we adopted from a shelter, has now been with us for three and a half weeks. He's fit into our household smoothly with no housetraining, chewing or barking problems. He doesn't get anxious when left alone and is always affectionate and happy to see us. He loves other dogs, children and animals and is remarkably happy. Even the vet was impressed with how he has no aggression, food or anxiety issues. He doesn't even shed hardly any hair and the only difference to our apartment is that the floors need to be swept more often (no scratching or other destruction to our property).

So my ongoing discomfort is purely a personal problem and has nothing to do with what a great dog he is. I'm just NOT a dog person. I don't like being outside and this animal has to be taken out several times a day. I particularly hate being in direct sunlight because it causes me rashes, but when you have to walk a dog during a bright day, there's no avoiding sunlight. Sunscreen makes no difference. I used to just stay indoors on bright days, but now I walk around with a rash. Also, the charm of walking a dog is over for me. I'm bored by it.

When we're home, I'm emotionally uncomfortable with how much he stares at me and follows me around. People keep telling me, "That's just how dogs are," but this gives me no comfort because it hardly matters what Ozzie's motivation is. He reminds me of bad relationships where the other person clung to me every minute and craved my constant attention and made me feel suffocated. These relationships made me feel inadequate. I felt guilty for not fulfilling the other person's needs and constantly anxious that I was handling things badly. I felt like I was constantly letting the other person down.

Can you see how having a dog that's always eager for playtime, walktime, snacktime and cuddling might evoke my lifelong fears of having the life sucked out of me by someone who is too "loving?"

I was talking to someone about religion recently (it fits in, just stay with me). She couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to be a part of something that promises constant attention from a loving God. I told her that it's been found that a person's concept of "God" is hugely influenced by their childhood. Children with nurturing, supportive, unconditionally loving parents tend to believe in a benevolent spiritual presence. Children with abusive, violent or emotionally unpredictable parents tend not to believe in a benevolent spiritual presence, or to at least be suspicious of what that means.

My companion was baffled by this. She said, "God is love." I said, "Yes, but when a child's parents teach him that love is yelling and abandonment and fear, then that child does not grow up believing that love is necessarily good. To such a person, the statement God is love can even sound sinister."

This is my problem when people tell me that I should relax because no matter what I do, Ozzie will love me anyway. I don't want Ozzie to love me anyway. It took a very long time for me to become comfortable with platonic friendship. It took me decades to make peace with the idea that a person could be in love with me just for who I am. It took me quite a while to finally accept the level of generosity and support that my husband gives me. To tell you the truth, I'm still working on the concept that Bob loves me unconditionally. Unconditional love? What??

Yes, love and intimacy have always been very scary to me. I have always needed to take things slowly, but there's no going slow with a dog. In just three and a half weeks, Ozzie acts like he's glommed onto me for life and it's freakin me the hell out. He smells doggy, he licks me too much, he makes me feel guilty every second that I'm not focused on him. I find tug-of-war, squeaky toys and throwing the ball boring and refuse to do it.

Bob is baffled and disappointed by my response. He adores Ozzie and is much happier with him in our lives. Bob knew I wasn't an animal person, but he's surprised that I'm responding this badly. I'm depressed and hitting the carbs hard again. I feel drained from taking care of this animal. I don't enjoy my weekends anymore because I'm on dog duty. In fact, my most relaxed days have become Tuesdays and Wednesdays because those are Bob's days off, when he takes responsibility for the dog.

I know, I'm pathetic. It's ridiculous to be whining about a dog when others are dealing with a death in the family or financial catastrophe or raising children, or all three at once, but it indicates how bad I am at life. I've always known I wasn't cut out for parenthood or family obligations and I have wisely avoided them. Foolishly, I didn't realize that even a nice dog would bring up my emotional baggage, turning me into a basket case, again.

I want to enjoy Ozzie more than I dread him. I want to enjoy my weekends again. I've got to pull out of the depression that dog ownership has sunk me back into. Time to see both therapists this week.

I vote Obama in 2012

2011-10-21T19:47:00.003-05:00

I quote my cousin Troy Rodriguez:
So the Libyan people asked for our help to stop a massacre and overthrow a terrorist leader, we did it without a single American service member hurt. Osama bin Laden is dead. Don't Ask Don't Tell is over. The unemployment rate that was 5% in April of 2008 and 8.2% the month after the new administration came in, is only 1% worse. The previous administration's TARP program has largely been repaid. The unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act is no longer being defended by the government. Yeah, the guy from Godfather's pizza is going to be much better.

Leather weather

2011-10-19T14:02:00.004-05:00

Today Chicago is finally having the weather I've been waiting for: cold, gray and rainy. I bought a leather jacket in August and have been waiting impatiently for temperatures to drop into the 40s and 50s F. They finally have!

I love October, but only when it's gray. I could have been a member of the Addams Family.

So, how's the new dog?

2011-10-15T07:17:00.006-05:00

Thank you for asking. It's been interesting because I'm no animal lover. My husband and his entire family adore dogs, but I see them as clumsy, overenthusiastic creatures that take a lot of work (the dogs, not the family).

But there's no turning back now. We brought Ozzie home from a shelter and I'm not going to make him go back. Anyway, I don't do things halfway. Either I want nothing to do with dogs or I'm 100% committed to one.

In July, when we started looking at shelters, I began researching. I bought Tamar Gellar's The Loved Dog and 30 Days to a a Well-Mannered Dog. Her books stress positive reinforcement and working with your dog's wolf instincts instead of against them. She explains why brute force and loud dominance will not build a good relationship with your pet and gives step-by-step instructions on how to successfully teach your dog to sit, stop jumping on people, come and do just about anything you want.

In the absence of natural dog affection, what holds my interest in Ozzie is an almost clinical fascination with him and a great appreciation for how much he makes my husband happy. Bob now wakes up smiling and spends time every day playing with Ozzie, telling him what a good boy he is and just cuddling with him. Bob's pleasure in life definitely increases tenfold with a dog and that's why I went against my nature and agreed to get one.

As for my clinical fascination, I like the experiment of trying to train Ozzie like the experts. I'm intrigued by how teachable he is and how his brain seems to work. Now that I've read a bit about the motivations of dogs and their basic nature, I like to watch him greet other dogs, react to children, play watchdog, and react to new situations. I have infinite patience for how much he sniffs and sniffs and sniffs because I'm amazed by what I've learned about how dogs process the world mostly through smell. My attitude only changes when he drags his snout through the most disgusting garbage you can find underneath an el (elevated train) viaduct. I still don't stop him, bu I watch in horror because I know Ozzie's nose will later brush me. I accept this because, apparently, that's the life of a dog owner.

My husband works an upside down restaurant schedule so here's our deal: Bob walks/feeds Ozzie in the morning, I walk/feed Ozzie in the evening, and whichever of us has the day off exercises him during the afternoon. My days off are Saturday and Sunday, Bob's are Tuesday and Wednesday. Three days a week we have a dog walker take Ozzie out in the afternoon.

This means I'm living a very different life. I now come straight home after work, after thinking about Ozzie all day, hoping he's not miserably lonely and ripping apart all the kleenex boxes. As the afternoon wears on, I gauge my energy level because I know he'll need a good walk and a shorter one before my bedtime. Of course, right before my bedtime is when I'd like to be winding down instead of trotting around the neighborhood, my attention riveted to every night sound and every tiny shadow that could be a pile of rotting food, but I'm trying to adjust.

Every day I have my worries and doubts. Can I keep up all the physical exercise and attention this dog needs? Can I adjust to the constant animal smell our apartment now has? Will I ever enjoy a relaxing evening again, knowing I have to take the dog out one last time before I can sleep? With my history of responding poorly to emotional attachment and being needed, will I adjust to how much this dog follows me around? And how do I keep it all up for the next six to ten years?

Then again, I know I lie around too much, especially on weekends, so I'm kind of enjoying the exercise I probably should have been getting all along (an early gym routine is not enough). I maintain a brisk power walk with Ozzie, unless I'm patiently observing him sniff everything in the world, and like to jog with him. I forgot how good running can feel, especially the thrill of speeding through the darkness, across leaf-covered city sidewalks. Ozzie enjoys this and I have to say, I'm right there with him. Exercise is also excellent for my mood, so taking an active dog out two or three times on most days of the week doesn't feel bad and it's bound to help my weight loss.

There's also a very Take-Back-the-Night aspect to walking a pitbull mix. I'm a short, 131-pound (these days) woman who has always been smaller than most others. No one's ever been afraid of me, but seeing Ozzie on a four-foot leash, people back away. I find myself saying "Hi" and smiling ingratiatingly at white, African American and Latino men who are a foot taller than I am so they won't panic at our approach. I marvel at how little I have to fear from anyone who might crawl out of the Chicago shadows because my black 45-pound pitbull mix looks mean (that is, until he cringes from anyone who raises a hand to him, but few strangers discover that).

As you can see, Ozzie is kind of cute. I like his glossy, smooth fur (let's hear it for short-haired dogs!) and puppy-like face. He's four years old, but looks and acts much younger. I like how well he responds to my training and how happy he is when Bob and I come home. My favorite things about him are his Batman ears. They're very expressive, especially in those moments when he actually flattens them in submission. I like brushing my fingers against their softness. Are ears always the softest part of a dog?

Having Ozzie around is sometimes endearing. I close my bedroom door when I'm not home because I don't want him on my bed, but he's figured out how to open the door. Bob says this means he misses me. At first I was annoyed, but now I find it kind of appealing. I continue to close my door when I leave the apartment, but just to give him a task to do, not to keep him out. I carefully make my bed to minimize the amount of dog dirt that gets under the covers (I hate dog dirt in my room).

Bob invites Ozzie to sleep in his bed each night, which I'm completely fine with because I just go in my room and close the door (I sleep best alone). They curl up together and Bob happily lets Ozzie rest his head on Bob's head, neck or shoulder. I could never fall asleep with a dog on my head, but Bob actually sleeps better this way, even though he often finds himself hanging off the bed when he wakes up. I find Bob blissfully waking up with a furry ear in his eye, starting off the day right.

It feels worth it, so far. Our household is a lighter and more cheerful place, plus Ozzie is great at cleaning up kitchen spills. It's my personal dog experiment and it's going well for a 45-year-old woman who never wanted one. I still don't (I felt much more immediate payoff when I got a husband), but I'm optimistic. I'll never be an animal lover, but I believe that pets are good for you, and I expect my affection and enjoyment of Ozzie to eventually outweigh the inconvenience and worry. Eventually.

How to Throw a Party and Still Have Fun

2011-10-13T07:35:00.002-05:00

It's party season, so let's get ready! I love having people over, an option that makes increasing sense as we all whittle down our entertainment budgets and try to stay close to home.

Maybe you're thinking, "How does that save costs if I'm providing food and drink for all my boozing friends?" Or maybe you're thinking, "The last time I threw a party, I got stuck in the kitchen" or "I had to run to the liquor store in the middle, while everyone else relaxed." If you avoid hosting parties because you don't want to be the cook or bartender all night, here's how to throw a party while still having a good time.

EASY - The Dinner Party

1. Choose an entree that you can make ahead of time and either leave in the oven or on the stove simmering. Simmering pot dishes are good because they'll be hot no matter what time you serve them or what time latecomers arrive. This frees you from having to stay in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on a sautee or a meatloaf, while your guests are arriving and mingling without you.

Anything you can put in a crock pot is perfect. Inexpensive options are thick stews or soups that you can load up with beans and vegetables and only a little meat, if any. Don't forget how filling split pea or a bean soup can be.

2. Serve buffet style. No waitressing for you and it also relieves you of having to wait until everyone arrives before you sit down and serve. In fact, I've never hosted a sit-down, plated meal because my friends arrive at all times and I never know exactly how many will show. People are often shy about being the first one at a buffet table, so go and serve yourself first to get everyone eating.

3. Have an assistant. Ask someone to help you answer the door, greet and take coats. Of course you'll be doing this too, but you'll enjoy your party more if someone else helps. Sometimes you'll already be getting someone a drink when the buzzer goes off again, or you might be deep in conversation, etc.

4. This one might be controversial but I do it: if a guest arrives with a contribution to the meal that requires some preparation, let them do it. When a friend handed me a couple of baskets of fresh strawberries, straight from the supermarket, I handed them right back and said, "Thank you. Do you mind washing them and putting them in a bowl? I'll get you a bowl." Otherwise you can end up stuck in the kitchen washing produce, opening containers and cutting up the extra food people have brought. That's lost party-time.

5. Stick to wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages. Set wine bottles out with cups and bottle openers, tell them the beer's in the fridge and let them have at it. Always encourage guests to bring something to drink because most people will do it and that decreases your chances of running out.

6. Clean-up: sometimes if you start picking things up before people leave, someone will step in and help you. That's the best. But even if no one does, make things easy by using disposable tableware and asking if anyone wants to take anything home. You might say, "Hey, Jackie, do you want to take some brownies?" or "Kenn, you really liked these potatoes. Can I pack them up for you?" Have aluminum foil ready and some plastic containers you don't need. If you play it right, you'll have nothing to put away but some chips and cookies (but keep unopened bottles for your next party). This also gets people moving if you're ready for them to leave, but they aren't budging.

EASIER - The Potluck

These days everyone understands why one person wouldn't want to foot the whole bill to feed a large group. Call it a potluck, follow some steps and people will be happy to pitch in. Fifteen years ago I threw a potluck for which I made a pot of beans, a pot of rice and bought some tortillas. I figured my guests would fill in with extras and was very disappointed and embarrassed when they mostly showed up empty-handed. We had a humble meal and I learned a big lesson.

1. Get potluck commitments from everyone. Invitation websites like Evite and Punchbowl will let you specify what you want guests to bring and lets them sign up for each item. If you don't use a website, when each guest says they're coming just say, "Great. Right now it's wide open so you could bring a side dish, dessert or something to drink." Get them to pick one and say they'll bring it.

2. Provide the main course. This keeps you from waiting on someone to arrive before you can start eating. If the mashed potatoes are an hour late, so be it. You can enjoy the entree and whatever else is there until they arrive.

3. As it gets closer to the date you can say things like, "Pretty much everything's covered, but I could use one more dessert." You know what your friends like. Assign to each person their favorite party food/beverage and they will not mind making sure it's there.

4. Another way to assign items, is to ask people who tend to run late to bring desserts and extra drinks, while asking your more prompt friends to bring appetizers and side dishes. If everyone's unpredictable, provide a core meal (main dish and one side) and add other things as they arrive.

5. Do not feel bad about asking your guests to bring things. You are offering them a chance to enjoy your home, relax with great people and spend a fraction of what they would at a restaurant, bar, theater, etc. Anyone who's not into it can just RSVP no.

6. Serve buffet style, etc. as described above.

EASIEST - The Snack Party

There was a time when I was on the tightest shoestring budget possible, but I refused to let that stop the Regina Party Machine. This is what I did.

1. Find a focus that isn't food. I love card game nights, but it could also be movie night, football night, charades, whatever.

2. Ask people to bring their favorite snack foods. Make sure they know you're not providing a meal (at least I had to because everyone was used to me cooking). Chances are, if everyone's bringing soda or chips or a pizza or cookies, you'll end up with PLENTY. I was also up front and told them I just couldn't afford to provide a main course this time and absolutely no one minded.

3. Put out napkins and sit down and enjoy the evening's activity.

Hosting friends in your home is a generous and gratifying way to socialize. You'll be surprised by how many people will thank you, even if you did nothing but open the door and point to the place they could put their items. Please do not let a little effort stop you from hosting people. Remember how great it was when you were a kid and you had friends come over to play at your house? Do it again!

National Depression Screening Day

2011-10-06T08:30:00.002-05:00

Thursday, October 6th is National Depression Screening Day in the U.S. Millions of Americans suffer from depression and don't even know it. We assume we're in a bad mood because of our crappy jobs or lack thereof, or any of a hundred reasons. We assume everyone would feel the same way given our situation.

I find that I'm depressed when I leave the house every day in a bad mood, when everyone irritates me, when I don't look forward to even my favorite things and when all I have to say to my husband in the morning is complaints and criticisms. For a lot of people, this probably sounds like business as usual. If it goes on for months, it's not.

You can check yourself for depression here.

A dog named Ozzie Martin

2011-09-29T10:00:00.005-05:00

My friends, I give you our new dog, Ozzie. Ozzie is a four-year-old pit-terrier mix who lived with a family for three years before he went into Orphans of the Storm animal shelter in Deerfield, Illinois USA. The family had two teenagers, another dog and a cat, so Ozzie is good with children and dogs one-on-one. We'll work on his comfort with more dogs at the same time.

Ozzie is impressively well behaved. Bob and I took him for our first "family" walk last night, then pretended to eat dinner (just had a snack) so he'd learn that we are the alpha dogs. In the wild, the alpha dog eats first and it's important that we establish who's boss. Then we fed him dinner. Later he dozed on his bed while we had our real dinner and he didn't even watch us eat. This dog clearly does not have food issues because the whole place smelled like my homemade meatloaf, but he stayed in the other room so there was no begging at all.

He also hasn't barked hardly at all. He peacefully watches people walk by when he sits in the sunroom with Bob. And speaking of the sunroom, that's an enclosed but unheated porch at the front of our apartment where Bob does all his smoking. Ozzie doesn't mind the smoke! I'm amazed, but he and Bob seem to be the perfect match.

I like the name "Ozzie Martin." It makes him sound like the old man who runs the cigar store and likes to tell stories about his family who's originally from Germany.

So far the plan is working: Ozzie adores Bob. I knew he would because Bob is a total dog lover. I'm hoping to become more of a dog person as time goes on. I know Ozzie will be sad to see Bob go to work later today, so I'm planning to pour on the affection and fun times. I'm looking forward to jogging with him.

(P.S. "Martin" is our last name. The dog only goes by one name.)

At 45, I'm finally an adult

2011-09-27T06:43:00.005-05:00

Because I put on so much weight last spring that I couldn't fit into my professional clothes, I cut out wheat, grains, potatoes, pasta, sweets, processed foods, fruit and all beverages except for water (I'm lactose intolerant, so dairy was already out). Excitingly, I'm beginning to fit into my suits again, but also exciting is that, I'm beginning to like wine!

Few will understand what this means to me. When I was 15, I did not like beer, wine or alcohol, but everyone assured me that I would soon. It didn't happen. In college and graduate school, I gave it my best, sucking on bottles of Rolling Rock and sipping mixed drinks, but my taste buds simply rejected it. Alcohol tasted nasty to me.

In my late 30's I began a three-year career in the restaurant industry where alcohol knowledge was required. I had to endure wine training sessions, sipping and spitting while others swallowed. Unable to distinguish between "buttery" and "oaky" or "jammy" and "fruity," I memorized wine descriptions from books. My opinions on different wines were simply "yucky" and "yuckier."

For decades, I've been the non-drinker. With acquaintances and co-workers, I would turn down a drink, explaining that I don't like alcohol, only to have them make suggestions of kinds I might like. It got tedious to constantly face people who couldn't believe a grown woman could simply not like the taste of alcohol. Worse was when people assumed I was judging them for drinking. I felt bewildered and chagrined that they saw my behavior as moralistic.

A couple of new year's eves saw me resolving that this would be the year I'd start drinking. Marrying Mr. Restaurant-and-Alcohol (my husband has been in the restaurant industry for over 30 years), motivated me greatly, but my resolve never got me past my natural recoil from the sharp burn of fermented liquid. Each time I failed, I felt disappointed in myself.

Now I suspect that my hyper-mega-sweet tooth was a large part of my distaste for alcohol. As a sugar addict, sweets were my main coping mechanism. I used to eat cookies for breakfast, following up with other pastries and candy all day long. Red wine in particular tasted sour and bitter and I couldn't understand how anyone could finish an entire glass without making a face.

Although I've cut out carbohydrates in past attempts to lose weight or deal with a health problem, I think this time is different because this time I'm not white-knuckling it. This time letting go of the sweets and starches has really worked for me. Why? Because, at the age of 45, after decades of trying, I have finally emotionally let go of the carbs. I did this over the past year with intensive work on my food and emotional issues with an amazing EMDR therapist (if you're in the area, you can find her here).

Delightfully, eating only vegetables and protein for the past two months has cleared my palate for flavors that used to be intolerable. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a glass of red wine, not in an attempt to fit in socially, but because the smell of it actually appealed to me. This had never happened before. I spent the rest of the dinner taking tiny sips every once in a while, just enough to get the flavor of the wine in my mouth. I was amazed to actually like it. At the end of two hours, I'd finished only half the glass, but for once I didn't leave the rest because it was gross to me. I simply stopped because the meal was over.

Since then I have been bewildered to twice enjoy a small amount of red wine with dinner. Last Saturday night, I ate a piece of steak and sipped on Shiraz. I used to hate Shiraz.

This is a huge breakthrough for me, a real accomplishment that I don't expect many to understand. I have long associated alcohol with adulthood and felt trapped in perpetual childhood because I just couldn't join the club. I'm so excited to finally be on the inside. I want to stay here, I want to keep liking the taste of wine and I want to keep feeling like a grown up. I want these things so much, I might never add sugars and starches back into my diet. Who needs cake, potatoes or pasta? I've got adulthood!

(photo by my husband, Bob Martin, who is very proud of me)

A fun new way to look at a 1992 thriller

2011-09-24T15:46:00.002-05:00

I recently watched a film that I should have seen decades ago: Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female, which came out in 1992. It was one of those movies that featured a woman who becomes increasingly unstable and dangerous, in the tradition of Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Misery.

Single White Female is suspenseful, sexy and wonderfully woman-centered for a film from the early 1990's. The movie is sort of a triumph for feminism that stars two women who end up facing off in a duel-to-the-death, similar to those that male characters engage in all the time. There are supporting male actors, but they fill good-guy and bad-guy roles without interfering too much with the main plotline: Ally (Fonda) takes a new roommate named Hedy (Jason Leigh), who tries to move into Ally's most intimate, personal life

It's a great ride and I'm sure I would have appreciated it as such if I'd seen it back in 1992. In fact, I don't know why I didn't. Both lead actresses are my contemporaries and the story of a single woman trying to live safely in the big city became my life within a year of the film's release.

Somehow I missed it, but I'm glad because last week I got to see it through the eyes of someone who has some knowledge of mental illness, from which Hedy certainly suffers. Hedy is described as crazy several times in the course of the movie, either by Ally or others, but it's never with any sympathy for someone suffering from an illness. Each time Hedy's behavior is referred to as crazy, it's with fear, in the context of what-are-we-going-to-do-to-protect-ourselves?

The scriptwriters could have substituted the word dangerous for crazy and the lines would read the same. Indeed, this is what society fears: not that mentally ill people have detached from reality, but that we are going to hurt other people. If the worst that mentally ill people did was rock ourselves and mutter in a corner, people wouldn't fear us as deeply they do. Sure, we all fear what's unfamiliar, but horror films aren't made about people who are different from the norm, unless they have also escaped from an asylum or clearly belong there.

Americans tend to vilify the mentally ill, and since we are a highly moralistic culture, we've turned mental illness into a sin, like excessive greed or an inability to be faithful to your spouse. Movies like Single White Female turn symptoms like mood instability, idealization/devaluation of others and paranoia into signs of an evil soul who must be punished (preferably killed).

Yes, mental illness can cause destructive behavior, but not because we are bad people who want to ruin the world. Our destructive behavior is an attempt to reduce the emotional pain we're in. It's irrational and unproductive and often makes things worse, but not because we want to drag you all down with us. Yes, we're acting crazy and that can be dangerous to others, but it's motivated by a desire to feel less alone, less afraid and less hopeless, not a desire to make your life miserable. Categorizing people as good or bad is an easier way to conceptualize your life, but it's irresponsible and cruel. People with mental illness don't have the devil inside of us, however you might think we do.

When we are healthy and responsible, those of us who manage a mental disorder tell our friends and family to take care of themselves when we slip, and to help us take care of ourselves by reminding us to take our meds or see our health professionals or go to the gym or walk the dog or whatever helps ground us in reality. I'm very grateful to everyone who knows I'm on an anti-depressant, but doesn't feel afraid of me or fear that I'll act unpredictably and make their life difficult.

There's a scene in Single White Female in which we hear Hedy's father begging her over the phone to come home. He says, "No doctors this time." We get a glimpse of Hedy as a lost little girl who needs professional help instead of a bullet through the head. But after Hedy hangs up on her father, the movie continues to show Hedy as an unstoppable force to be feared, not a human being to be treated. Tragically, this is how a lot of people still see the mentally ill and how the media still tends to portray us.

Dog-tolerant

2011-09-21T19:13:00.003-05:00

My reasons to get a dog:

Owning a pet has been shown to improve humans' health (physical and mental). My husband and I can definitely use that.
Bob loves dogs, was raised with them and has been wanting a dog for a long time.
I am finally mature enough, at the age of 45, to take care of a being who is dependent on me for food, safety and well-being.
I'm not as afraid of being needed as I used to be.
I've been studying the art of training and sharing one's life with a dog and I'm feeling confident about it.
Owning a dog will make me a nicer person (more patient, more relaxed, less afraid)...eventually.
Bob says they're fun to play with.
For god's sake, we're a couple that doesn't want children. Isn't it required by society that we have at least one dog?

We're going to adopt a full-grown dog from a shelter. I imagine I'll become one of those people who forwards emails with photos of animals, spends hours watching pet videos and asks everyone, "Do you have a dog?" But I'll try not to become a doggy blogger, I promise.

No, not the peanuts! NO!!

2011-09-14T20:02:00.004-05:00

What food are you unable to live without?

Because of U.S. drought this summer, peanut prices could climb by 30% over the next several months. This puts in jeopardy my favorite lifelong snack: peanut butter. I'm talking about freshly ground, organic peanut butter, which contains just the peanuts, that I get at a natural foods store. How important is this oily protein source to me?

If asked to choose one food that I simply cannot do without, I choose peanut butter.
If I run out of it, what food most drives me to run out to the grocery store? Peanut butter.
It's my main comfort food.
It's what I'm almost always in the mood for, even when I don't feel like eating anything else.
I'll eat fresh, organic peanut butter with jelly, carrots, apples, raisins, tomatoes, mushrooms, bean sprouts, chicken, beef, tuna, bread, crackers or rice cakes, but it tastes best off my finger.
I consider it a diet food and will not sacrifice it even when I give up grains, sugar, processed food, beverages-besides-water, dairy products and anything made out of flour (as I've been doing since July).
Yes, I'm losing weight right now, on a protein-and-vegetables diet that includes peanut butter.
Given a choice of flavors for cookies, protein bars, candy, etc. I will always choose peanut butter.
Peanut butter!

If prices go too high, maybe I can stop getting haircuts.

Low carbs, high animal protein

2011-09-05T08:10:00.004-05:00

On July 29th, with a doctor's guidance, I cut out all carbs, including fruit. Eating only vegetables and protein, I have watched the scale stubbornly show only the smallest changes from week to week. When I cut out carbs in the spring of 2010, the weight came off by about 1.25 pounds a week, but that's not happening this year. What's going on?

My doctor and I believe it's my anti-depressant. That's the only thing that's changed in the past year and many anti-depressants cause weight gain. I thought I was so lucky that it caused no change in my weight when I started taking it last winter, but it turns out that I didn't completely escape that effect. It seems to have affected my ability to lose weight.

So getting rid of those ten horrible pounds I put on in six lousy weeks (in May/June), is turning out to be much harder to lose than it should. After five weeks of vegetables, protein, exercise and sauna-sweats, my weight barely registers almost a four-pound loss. Mental illness sucks even worse than I thought.

But here's the good news: at any other point in my life I would GREATLY resent passing up all the buns and bread, the chips and crackers, the cookies and cakes, the summer fruit, the bowls of cereal and pasta, and my favorite: rice. But after seventeen years of slowly weeding out processed foods, dairy products and everything that now causes my middle-aged digestive system pain, I don't mind the way I'm eating now. After intensive work on my food issues with an EMDR therapist I have broken my emotional connection with sugar. Between the stomach aches I get from grains and dairy and no longer needing sugar as a crutch, eating only vegetables and protein feels good.

So if it takes six months to lose what I put on in six weeks, even on nothing but meat, eggs, fish, beans, nuts and produce, so be it. My stomach is at peace this way. I sleep well at night. I'm finally beginning to understand that all bodies have different needs and the high-carb vegetarian diet that someone else swears by, isn't a diet I should feel obligated to try. Every time I hear someone say that we shouldn't eat meat more than a couple of times a week, I know that might be true for them, but it's definitely not true for me. When nutritionists recommend dairy products, I know they're not talking to the lactose-intolerant.

From decades of experimenting on my own body, I know that all foods can cause me stomach aches except for these: vegetables and animal protein (even too many nuts or beans will upset me). Those are the only two categories that never hurt me, so I eat them happily and let the rest go.

September!

2011-09-02T08:21:00.006-05:00

For a few months now, my friends might hear me say "This is my favorite time of year." There are two reasons for this:

1. I love cold weather
2. I love Christmas

Anticipating Christmas adds a wash of happiness over my days that is completely irrational. Does Christmas Day bring me great joy? No. It's the weeks-long celebration that I enjoy. Others grumble about the commercialism of Christmas and feel offended when they see Christmas-themed ads in October. I love seeing Christmas-themed ads in October because they signal the beginning of weeks of special treats, extra parties and indulgences accompanied by the attitude, "Why not? It's Christmas." I know businesses are just trying to wring as much revenue out of us as possible, but I look at it differently. To me it's all just one big celebration and there's nothing I enjoy like a celebration.

My husband and I are people who happily put up our tree in November and take it down some time in February, but I even out-do him. In my opinion, it's never too early to start thinking about Christmas. One of the best things about being in a church or community choir is that you might start learning Christmas carols in August. I'll make holiday vacation plans that early, too.

Today we're having what I hope is the last beastly-hot day of the Chicago summer season. I don't have much patience with summer and by this time every year I want nothing more to do with it. This is a huge part of why I choose to live (and die) in Chicago: its protracted winters and truncated summers totally work for me.

And now it's September! The way others feel a little down at the end of summer, so do I dread the end of March when the really cold weather lets up for the year. So I'm doing great right now. I wait for this month all year long, just as I wait for October all year long and November, etc. Anybody else feeling happy?

Countdown

2011-08-27T07:49:00.002-05:00

*whispered*
(Hey! Less than four months left til Christmas!)

Mental illness has benefits!

2011-08-21T12:35:00.006-05:00

Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts USA, has published a book that links strong leadership ability, especially in times of crisis, with mental illness. Equally remarkable is the hypothesis of A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness that mental illness provides us with better tools for coping with extreme crisis.

Dr. Ghaemi's book counters the usual attitude that while some world leaders have been identified with mental disorders, those illnesses are details to be ignored or handicaps to be overcome. But the idea that mental illness can be an asset in a leader isn't new. One of Darryl Cunningham's graphic short stories, in Psychiatric Tales, brings up the same idea. Cunningham writes that Winston Churchill's bipolar disorder symptoms helped his leadership during World War II. In England's grimmest moments, Prime Minister Churchill's extreme energy, grandiosity, belligerence and lack of inhibition helped pull his people through. His remembered quotations include "If you're going through hell, keep going," and "I like a man who grins when he fights."

Dr. Ghaemi says that not only can manic symptoms serve a leader well, but so can depressive symptoms. He writes about Martin Luther King, Jr and Mohandas Ghandi surviving suicidal episodes years before they emerged as grassroots leaders. The idea is that a major depression takes a huge toll on your psyche and requires all of your emotional and creative resources, but the effort it takes to pull yourself through builds a special skill set. Coming out on the other side of wishing you were dead creates a strong sense of self and a learned ability to respond to crisis with positive, productive action. We depressives who have been up and down, emerge from each dark battle with an even better ability to thrive in adverse circumstances.

Surprisingly, A First-Rate Madness includes a discussion of John F. Kennedy, who I'd never associated with mental illness. From Kennedy's hypersexuality, extreme energy and family history, Dr. Ghaemi concludes that Kennedy had a disorder that causes mild manic symptoms all the time. This enabled Kennedy to endure serious health challenges while building a political career towards the presidency.

It gets a bit edgy at the end of the NPR article, when Dr. Ghaemi speculates about President Obama's ability to weather one of the most economically horrific periods in world history. Dr. Ghaemi categorizes the president as being mentally healthy and stable, but hopes the president's early life, which was characterized by both personal and racial identity crises, might have affected his moods and anxiety levels, creating a more "nuanced" personality than average. The doctor recognizes the strangeness of hoping your president has mental illness in his makeup, but believes that if President Obama did, it would be to his advantage.

Any book that points to the advantages of mental illness and how it makes one more resilient under pressure, is a book I must investigate. I've heard the assertions about people with mental illness being more creative, but our society doesn't value creativity nearly as much as it values strong leadership skills. I'd like to be associated with that, too. I urge you to read this article, or even better, listen to the radio story (even better, read the book and let me know what you think). My husband says, "There's good and bad in everything," and I'm happy that it looks like that applies to mental illness, too.

The Booth at the End

2011-08-16T19:41:00.007-05:00

Last weekend I discovered the web series The Booth at the End. Only five episodes were made, shown exclusively on HuluPlus this summer. As I watched episodes one through four, I wished the series went on forever, but when I heard the final line of episode five, I realized, no, the story ends perfectly right where it stops.

Apparently the show counts as science fiction, but only in the way that Stephen King short stories or certain Twilight Zone episodes count as science fiction. The series is really more of a character study (articles about it call it a psychological thriller). I like that one HuluPlus user (HuluPlus is the only place you can see it-correction: you can see it on regular Hulu.com, but not if you're in certain countries) called it the most boring show he'd ever seen. I am fascinated by the show, but to appreciate it you do have to be satisfied with a single location and a bunch of two-person conversations. My only complaint about it is that its many shots of pie and sandwiches make me crave diner food.

The central question of the narrative is "How far would you go to get what you want?" People come to a man who sits in the booth on the end, in a small diner. They want something that has proven impossible to achieve in their lives (it often involves the well-being of someone they care about or the attainment of a certain kind of experience). This man provides them their greatest wish in return for a task that he gives them. As they go through the steps of completing the task, their dream starts to come true.

What's interesting is that not all the tasks are unpleasant. Some are difficult for ethical reasons, but some are just difficult (such as, to befriend someone with agoraphobia and get him to go outside). There also, at first, seems to be no point or greater design to these tasks. Each is simply the price for what you want. It's painful yet engrossing to watch the characters constantly weigh the challenges of their task against how badly they want their desire. Often the tasks require them to stretch their beliefs about right and wrong and they seem to be asking themselves, "Is this worth it? How about now? How about now?"

The science fiction aspect of the show is the way this mysterious, nameless man can work such magic in people's lives. That part is never explained, but I don't think it's important. The Booth at the End gets its suspense from the slow reshuffling of people's ethics and the always present question in the viewer's mind: are they really going to do that? If this is the kind of series we get when an Internet entertainment provider creates original programming with no budget, then let them never have enough for a haircut.

I look great

2011-08-15T19:37:00.007-05:00

The ten pounds I put on between Mother's Day and Father's Day has finally started to move off. I'm actually down two whole pounds (sarcasm). I'm facing the uncomfortable truth that weight loss becomes an even slower process in middle age. But at the age of 45, I have realized that no matter how old I am, I am the youngest I'll ever be again, so I'm starting a new habit of looking in the mirror and saying, I look great! I'm never going to be this young again! In ten years, or even five, I'll look at photos of me now and think, 'I looked great! I should have appreciated it more.'

It's a good habit that I recommend to everyone. Of course, it's possible that everyone already does this and I've caught on later in life, but that's usually how it goes with me. (Don't know what's going on with the font size here).

Borderline personality disorder now has a face

2011-08-02T21:00:00.001-05:00

Patty Duke and Kay Redfield Jamison have written books about living with bipolar disorder. Famous people who have spoken about their struggles with chronic depression include Sheryl Crowe, Jim Carrey and Owen Wilson. But the mental illness that fascinates me the most is borderline personality disorder and now we finally have a spokesperson for it.

Yesterday I saw this article about Miami Dolphins receiver Brandon Marshall stating publicly that he has borderline personality disorder (BPD). (I apologize since that's the same acronym used for bipolar disorder, but apparently the two disorders share the same initials.) I find this absolutely incredible. I think BPD, even more than other mental disorders, is characterized by the person with BPD being certain that there's nothing wrong with them. For Marshall to realize he has this particular problem shows amazing self-awareness and openness to change. Sometimes someone will call me brave for admitting publicly on my blog that I have chronic depression, but I'd say that's nothing compared to someone coming clean on borderline personality disorder.

So what is it? The National Institute of Mental Health says BPD is:

characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity. Originally thought to be at the "borderline" of psychosis, people with BPD suffer from a disorder of emotion regulation.

Actually, I believe there's some debate about BPD since some argue that it doesn't count as a mental illness so much as a personality disorder. Someone please correct me, but I think the difference is that a mental illness like depression or bipolar disorder has a physiological component: our brains don't have the right balance of hormones and/or enough active neurotransmitters, etc. Mental illness is often treated with drugs that help our brains achieve the right mix.

But since BPD is a personality disorder, the behaviors aren't caused by faulty brain chemistry, but by trauma and/or learned behaviors and stress responses. (Seriously, someone please correct me if I have this wrong because I'm a complete layperson on all this. All I really know is the flavor of the crazy that's inside my mouth.)

Whichever way you argue it, borderline personality disorder is serious stuff and is very difficult to live with, for both the sufferer and their family and friends. I totally salute Brandon Marshall for stepping up. I've been wondering when we'd have a spokesperson who is willing to take this one on and now we have him.

Yay, summer is almost over in the U.S!

2011-07-31T21:43:00.002-05:00

Okay it isn't, but I'm trying to cheer myself up by focusing on the return of Chicago's cold weather when:

1. People will stop arguing loudly outside in the middle of the night.

2. No one is in danger of dying of heat-related problems.

3. Our upstairs neighbor's air conditioner stops dripping noisily on my bedroom window.

4. Our electric bill goes down.

5. Restaurant staff stop giving me the option of outdoor seating. I do not like outdoor seating.

6. Professional attire is more comfortable (suits, blazers, knit slacks, etc). I like professional attire.

7. The entire outdoors becomes "air conditioned." Ahhhh...

8. The nights get long and there's less of that pesky sunlight.

9. I can bundle up in the heavy clothing I'm happier in.

10. Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas come back!

If I liked warm weather, I would have stayed in California where I was born. So there.

Thank a system administrator this Friday

2011-07-27T06:45:00.003-05:00

This Friday, July 29 is System Administrator Appreciation Day. A system administrator, or sysadmin, is the person who (from the http://www.sysadminday.com/ website):
...plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work -- to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality. So if you can read this, thank your sysadmin -- and know he or she is only one of dozens or possibly hundreds whose work brings you the email from your aunt on the West Coast, the instant message from your son at college, the free phone call from the friend in Australia, and this webpage.

I truly believe sysadmins do not get nearly the appreciation they deserve, so I'm baking a cake for ours at the place where I work (don't tell them. It's a surprise). I will bring it in on Friday morning and celebrate all the work they do.

I work on the same floor as our information technology department and I love how they are always there. No matter how late or early it is, someone is working. Even if it's the Friday before a three-day weekend or the day before Thanksgiving and everyone else in the building is gone, someone in our IT department is discussing some problem, often in a huddle. I never feel lonely when I'm at work, even if my half of the floor is deserted.

So, please, thank a sysadmin on Friday, July 29. The website even gives gift suggestions such as goodies, Best Buy gift cards and six packs of Mountain Dew. I love sysadmins and I'm going to tell them. (Photos from the http://sysadminday.com/ website)

The Blue Zones: How much can you do?

2011-07-26T15:45:00.007-05:00

The "blue zones" are parts of the world where people commonly live past age 100. They are called that because the researcher who originally studied these zones, used blue ink to circle them on his map. So much for mystery.

According to Dan Buettner’s The Blue Zones, there are nine main strategies for living longer. Details can be found on the Blue Zones website, but here's my summary:

1. Don’t exercise like an American, pounding ourselves against the pavement and pushing ourselves to the limit. Incorporate natural movement into every single day: taking the stairs, doing things by hand, parking far from your destination and walking, walking, walking.

2. Know the purpose of your life or “why I wake up in the morning.” Know your values, gifts, talents, what you love, etc.

3. Take time every day to let go of stress. Maybe pray, take a nap, meditate or get together with friends at the same time every day (but I guess, don’t pound yourself into the pavement releasing stress with a 10-mile run).

4. Follow the Japanese approach of hara hachi bu: eat until you are 80% full, then stop. (Or eat until you are no longer feeling actual hunger, then stop. Can you imagine Americans eating like this?)

5. Eat mostly plant-based foods and limit meat to a couple of meals a week.

6. Drink one (for women) or two (for men) glasses of alcohol a day, preferably red wine.

7. Belong to a religious or spiritual community.

8. Put family first.

9. Make others, who practice the most healthful habits, your closest friends.

Oh-h-kay-y.

The first five habits sound great. I’m right there on the diet, exercise and stress-relieving practices. Unfortunately, I don’t drink at all and am very disappointed to learn that moderate drinkers (not more than one or two a day) are healthier than non-drinkers. Maybe it’s time to make “start drinking” my new year’s resolution (again).

Even harder for me are habits seven and eight, and as for nine: I live in the United States. Where am I going to find even one person who lives anywhere close to this?

How about you? Which of these would be the easiest for you? And before you say “drinking” remember that you have to limit yourself to one (for women) and two (for men) drinks a day and no saving them up for the weekends.

Which of these would be the hardest for you? I’m guessing that many who read this blog will find the first five harder than the last four. For me, it’s reversed.

Cutting the cake

2011-07-25T18:02:00.005-05:00

That cake was so good (yellow cake with lemon filling). I've decided that all my birthday cakes for the rest of my life have to come from Central Continental Bakery in Mt. Prospect, Illinois USA. I had to make that long drive just hours after a record-breaking rainfall left power outages, blinking red lights at major intersections and flooded streets with cops guarding them, but I made it and it was worth it. I'd never driven in that area and had to use a map to re-route twice, but nothing motivates me like cake.

Central Continental Bakery is the one, I'm telling you.

Today is my birthday

2011-07-24T01:15:00.002-05:00

Today I am 45 years old! I'm very happy about this because I've been looking forward to 45 for a long time. In my 20s, I found life to be challenging and confusing, and I figured 45 was a good age to expect to have found some balance and confidence. It just sounded safe and comfortable and like a time when I'd have some things figured out about what I wanted my life to look like.

Sure enough, every one of my expectations about middle age is being fulfilled. I do have more confidence and balance in my life and I definitely have a greater feeling of safety in the world. What I want my life to look like is much clearer and I wouldn't go back to any earlier time in my life for anything in the world. Happy birthday to me because middle age is great.

Plus this cake is from an excellent bakery and I can't wait to cut into it at my party in about 12 hours. Yes, it's a Sunday afternoon party with lunch, games, cake, ice cream and then everyone goes home sober (my kind of party)!

If you could be any age for one week

2011-07-23T13:20:00.007-05:00

I've heard people asking other people, "If you could be any age for a week, what age would you be?" Think about your answer for a moment.

Okay.

So far, everyone has answered with an age they've already been (often childhood). I do not answer with an age I've already been. The further I get from my childhood, or from my 20s or from my 30s for that matter, the better.

The age I'd choose to be for a week is 90. I want to see what old age is like because I think it could be pretty good. Many people dread it because they assume old age means pain and infirmity and being dependent on others (insanely, everyone wants to live a long time but no one wants to get old). I don't expect old age to be bad. I expect to be strong and healthy much longer than most people. In my 70s, 80s and 90s I will be active and lucid.

Of course, I could be dead wrong and in the grave by 75, but I'd still choose to be 90 years old for a week because if that means I'd actually be dead, that's even better. Who wouldn't want to find out what death is like and then come back? I would totally do that.

Being dead for a week. Think of how rested you'd be!

Saying the Right Thing

2011-07-16T13:33:00.006-05:00

Let's say your name is Chris and you have a friend named Rita. Let's say you see her right outside of your usual coffee shop, while she's carrying her latte out and you’re on your way in for your morning pick-me-up.

You say, "Rita, what's up?"

She steps out of the way for others on their way in and says, "Hey, Chris. Well, my new job is driving me crazy. I'm either completely bored or going out of mind with some crazy project." Rita's face is more flushed than usual and she looks like she’s already worked a whole day.

She continues, "Yesterday my boss asked me to find out how to ship a Tibetan carpet from Mexico back into the U.S. and there's this form that asks all these questions about what the carpet is made out of and what its path of origin was or whatever. It's a nightmare." She drags a hand through her hair.

You put down your bag to give her your full attention, "Rita, you haven't been there long. I'm sure there's someone else in the office you can ask for help.” It sounds to you like she has a challenge on her hands, but not a huge one.

"No, there really isn’t,” Rita sighs. “It's a ten-person office and everyone else is an accountant or an HR person or a vice-president. That's one of the many things I hate about this job, Chris. I'm the support staff, all by myself. There's no one to show me the ropes at all." Rita now looks less frustrated and more dejected. You know exactly how she feels, trying to grope her way through a new job, so you reassure her that this is perfectly normal.

"Rita, everyone goes through that. It just takes a while to learn a new job. Call the post office or UPS maybe. They've got to be able to help with stuff like that."

"Yeah, I guess," but her eyes don't leave the ground and she looks sad.

"What?"

"Oh, it's just that even if I figure this one out, there'll just be another problem tomorrow that I'll have no idea what to do with. Or there'll be nothing to do at all." You’re surprised that she’s taking it this hard.

"Rita, give yourself time. It'll be fine. I had a rough time at my job, too, when I was brand new. Just wait, you'll feel much better in another month or so."

At this point Rita throws her head back and sighs, then lifts it again and says, "Chris, this job is weird. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing there."

You frown slightly, genuinely confused. Why doesn't Rita see that this feeling is normal and she’ll soon be over it?

You give it one more try. "Rita, you're a great support person. You've got years of experience, plus you're about the smartest person I know. I'm sure if you just relax, things will get better."

Your friend looks you in the eye while you say this, but once you’re done she glances down and mutters, "Never mind. I have to go."

"Rita -- "

"I'll talk to you later," she throws over her shoulder and slumps away, leaving you baffled.

If you’ve ever been in Chris’ position, I have a possible explanation because I've been Rita, many, many times. Often what people like Rita are looking for is sympathy. We appreciate that you want to make us feel better, but that isn't always the best way to begin. People like Chris are great at pointing out the bright side or reassuring us that everyone goes through this. Chris is an excellent resource for helpful advice and reminding us that we're okay and things will change soon. But what I often need is to simply know that someone is listening, perhaps with the words, “I’m sorry. That sucks.” Words like this tell me that the listener has heard my problem, is okay with my pain and isn’t trying to quickly improve my mood because they're uncomfortable with my emotions.

Here’s how I would prefer the conversation to go.

Rita says, "Yesterday my boss asked me to find out how to ship a Tibetan carpet from Mexico back into the U.S. and there's this form that asks all these questions about what the carpet is made out of and what its path of origin is or whatever. It's a nightmare." She drags a hand through her hair.

You put down your bag to give her your full attention, "Wow, that sounds rough. And I guess there’s no one there who can help you out?” (Now you’re not assuming that Rita hasn’t already tried everything.)

"No, there really isn’t,” Rita sighs. “It's a ten-person office and everyone else is an accountant or an HR person or a vice-president. That's one of the many things I hate about this job, Chris. I'm the support staff, all by myself. There's no one to show me the ropes at all."

You think you know exactly how she feels, trying to grope her way through a new job, but you don’t assume, so you keep your sympathy simple and say, "I’m sorry. That sucks.”

Rita lifts her eyes and looks at you. She takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah. It does.”

You pause and wait for her cue, ready to give whatever she seems to need. When she doesn't speak, you make sure you understand by saying, "It sounds like you've got this whole pile of responsibility and no one to show you how to do it."

"Yeah," Rita's face starts to clear, "I've never had a job where there was no orientation to the job at all!"

Again, you follow her lead and when she asks, "Have you ever had a job like that?" you say, "Not exactly like that, but I've had some pretty bad training that was as good as none at all."

Now that Rita asks you for your experience you give it and when she wonders what she should do next, you launch into all that great advice that was fighting to get out from the beginning.

Or maybe Rita simply thanks you for listening and then moves on. Whatever her reaction, she feels like you really listened and were present for her and she's grateful that you didn’t give in to your discomfort and try to rush her into a better state of mind.

"I'm sorry, that sucks" are surprisingly powerful words for me. When I'm feeling bad about a particular situation in my life, they are often all I want, at least at first. After I feel like you’ve heard me and sympathized, then I might be interested in advice or another view of the problem. Helpful suggestions are great, but I don’t always need them up front.

"You don't look like you've gained weight"

2011-07-08T07:55:00.003-05:00

People think this is a nice thing to say and I'm sure it is for most people. I'm sure it happens all the time that a woman feels fat from a recent weight gain, but feels reassured by others that they can't tell.

Not me.

In my twisted mind, the statement, "You don't look like you've gained weight," sounds like "You've always strained your clothes like this and had that double chin."

Recently I responded to this reassuring statement by saying, "Please don't say that. It makes me feel bad. These days I don't respond well to anything but I'm sorry to hear that. " The person smiled and said, "Okay, I'm sorry to hear that. But I really can't tell you've gained weight!"

She thought she was being nice and I can't blame her. To normal people, that probably is nice, but I felt like she was insulting me after I'd asked her not to.

Yeah, I'm recovering from depression again. One way I cope is to ask people specifically for what I need. It doesn't always work.

Face Blindness (Prosopagnosia)

2011-07-01T18:04:00.009-05:00

At my wedding celebration with Bob in 2008, I met some of his family for the first time. To prepare, I spent months studying a photo of them because I didn't want to fail to recognize them. It took that long for their faces to sink in to my memory because I suffer from face blindness, also called prosopagnosia.

I’m excited about the latest issue of Face to Face, specifically the article written by Heather Sellers. This publication is produced by the Prosopagnosia Research Center, which I'm so relieved to have discovered! Sellers' story of not recognizing friends and family is familiar to me and I wanted to cheer when I read it. Prosopagnosia is a real handicap that people rarely understand and I haven't been great at talking about it. But in middle age, my problem with faces is getting worse, so I need to start explaining it better. I'm so happy to have found this newsletter!

Many people think being bad with faces is like being bad with names, but the two aren't that similar. If you forget someone's name, you can still greet them warmly and have a conversation. But when I forget a face, the person looks like a stranger to me. I sometimes hurt the feelings of people who know me because they think I'm ignoring them out of anger or rudeness, but really I just don’t remember ever meeting them.

Yeah, it gets bad. I once went to the dinner party of someone named Paul who I met for the first time that night. I was at his place for hours and had a great evening with him and mutual friends. The next day, as I climbed the steps of my church (back when I went to a church), a stranger wished me good morning. I returned it. Then he asked if I’d recovered from that crazy conversation last night. I stared at him and said, “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” He stared back and said, “I’m Paul. You were at my house last night.” Talk about feeling like an idiot.

Prosopagnosia is basically a brain disorder that can happen after an injury, but people like me are just born that way. No one knows why yet and research is still new. I first noticed that I had a problem when I was 20 years old. In college, some guy started up a conversation with me as I walked through campus. Being young and friendly, I chatted with him. About five minutes into the conversation, he asked about a magazine deadline. With horror, I realized this was Gary, the photographer who I'd been on staff with for months. I was too mortified to let on, but even when I realized who he was, I still couldn't place his face.

I’ve also introduced myself to the same person twice at parties -- within minutes. Hey, the guy moved across the room - how was I supposed to recognize him in a new spot? I cling to context for ways to remember who someone is. If you take that new co-worker out of the office or that brand new acquaintance out of the chair they were just sitting in, I might not recognize them again.

This is not to say that I can’t tell who anyone is. I eventually learn faces, but it takes longer than most people. If it’s, say, a new staff person that I work with every single day, learning their face might take a week. If I see them infrequently, it might take months. I really had to study that picture of Bob's family before I could trust myself to be polite to them. I knew that if I saw their faces for the first time the day of our celebration, I wouldn't remember which ones they were for the whole party.

I often say this when I meet someone, "Hi, I'm Regina. Look, I'm really bad with faces, so if I see you again and don't say hi, don't take it personally."

Unfortunately, people don't usually understand. They say, "Oh, no problem. I'm bad with names, so we're even." But we're not even. People aren't nearly as thrown off by an acquaintance forgetting their name as they are by an acquaintance acting as if they've never met.

So I might start saying this, "Hi, I'm Regina. It's really nice to meet you. I have prosopagnosia which means I don't remember faces, so please remind me of who you are until I get it. It takes me longer than most people to remember who I've met." What do you think? I'll gladly take feedback on this.

It's remarkably difficult to convince someone that I can't remember faces. This suggests that easily remembering faces must be such a basic, universal skill that people can't believe someone can't do it. I envy anyone who can meet someone for a few minutes and then recognize them the next day. What a superpower! When I meet a new person, I desperately take inventory of their clothing, hair, makeup, etc. I remember context and opinions (such as, "I love those red shoes" or "What happened to his hair?") much better than images. I hope their outfit and hairstyle won't change too much before I see them again, but they often do. It's a confusing world for me and I can't trust my memory of it.

Please be patient with friends (or co-workers or neighbors) who bizarrely act like we don't know you, especially outside of the place where we usually see you. Researchers are finding that prosopagnosia is very common and many people have it to some degree. Some people take a little longer to learn a new face, others don't recognize even themselves in a photo or in the mirror.

Imagine what it would be like if you had to re-learn everyone's face all the time, fumbling through embarrassing situation after embarrassing situation. It's a real handicap, socially and professionally. People like me often come across as aloof, shy, snobbish, in-our-own-world or just rude. When I reach a certain age, I'm sure I'll look senile and hopeless. One day there might be therapies or even a cure for prosopagnosia, but at the moment, researchers are still trying to identify the part of the brain it involves.

So the next time someone you know looks at you blankly or acts like she doesn't recall the last interaction you had, she might frantically be trying to place who you are. If it's me, help me out. I'm not being rude. I have a brain disorder and I might not recall having laid eyes on you before.

Middle-aged struggle

2011-06-28T06:26:00.003-05:00

Because of personal stressors, I put on almost ten pounds between May 8th and June 19th. This is significant when you're only five feet, two inches tall.

I haven't weighed this much in almost ten years. It's very discouraging because I know it'll take way more than six weeks to take it all off. My only consolation is that, while spring is always a difficult time for me, it was something very specific that triggered my depression and made me hit the carbs like I did. With plenty of therapy and self-care I already feel better. I'm sure it'll be a matter of months until I'm back where I was. (A matter of years? Damn.)

Doesn't take much to be overweight when you're short

2011-06-19T11:59:00.005-05:00

My last vacation, plus some personal stressors, got me eating this spring. I'm fighting depression again and as of today, I've been on a six-week carb binge. This is the biggest I've been in almost ten years.

I won't bother telling you how much actual weight I've put on because I'm so short that even my top weight doesn't sound like much to a lot of people. I'll let the pictures speak for me. I will say that none of my pants fit anymore except for the elastic top ones.

Transmission from the Twilight Zone

2011-06-14T23:30:00.003-05:00

In 2009 Stephen King wrote a novella called UR that was available only on Kindle. I still don't know why it was called "UR," but it was about a Kindle that could access publications from alternate universes.

Last night I received this email on my Kindle. I have the 3G one and often use it to check my email. I know it's just a glitch, but the date on this email is 1969.

Or is it a glitch...?

World Blood Donor Day

2011-06-12T19:57:00.002-05:00

June 14th is World Blood Donor Day. I am a regular donor and have been giving blood for years. I had gotten into the habit of giving every two months, as allowed in the United States, but I had to stop after my (first ever) international trip last September. I went to Peru, which is on the list of dangerous countries, blood-donor-wise. I am resentfully awaiting September 10, 2011 when I will officially be allowed to donate again and then I'm never traveling outside the U.S. again.

Please, someone who is reading this who has never given blood before, please give.

"vacation"

2011-06-06T13:11:00.004-05:00

I'm back from another vacation (5/28 to 6/5). I didn't feel like blogging while I was on it. Maybe I'm just not a vacation type of person. New York is not where I want to be. No place is, except for Chicago. I've had enough of vacations for a while.

Views of family

2011-05-27T15:28:00.002-05:00

Children are a poor substitute for a legacy. Try writing a memoir instead.
KC Hagans, 2009

You can't cure families, you can only prevent them.
Regina Rodriguez-Martin, 2010

Please quote us (with credit).

SlutWalk Chicago

2011-05-24T06:03:00.002-05:00

It's called SlutWalk Chicago, it takes place on Saturday June 4th. From Newser.com: It all started with some ill-considered advice from a Toronto policeman. To prevent rape, he told a group of law students, “Avoid dressing like sluts.” That gaffe sparked a head-turning wave of protests dubbed “SlutWalks” in cities across Canada, in which women—some dressed in plain old jeans and t-shirts, others showing more skin than is practical in Canada—took to the streets to decry victim-blaming and slut-shaming. “We had just had enough,” says Heather Jarvis, founder of SlutWalk Toronto. Now, the Huffington Post reports, the phenomenon has gone global, spreading virally to Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. Most major US cities have or will have SlutWalks—Boston, Dallas, Hartford, Asheville, and Rochester."

I proudly add Chicago to that list!

My U.C. Berkeley women's studies professor (26 years ago) talked about rape by asking, "Is a man who walks around in expensive clothes, spending lots of money, asking to be robbed?" I thought, of course not. Oh, I get it. But infuriatingly, lots of people don't get it and still believe that looking attractive means you want someone to violently assault you and invade your body in the most intimate, psychologically damaging way possible. People still believe that men can be driven to violence simply by the appearance of a woman, so it's up to us to keep our bodies out of sight.

SlutWalk Chicago invites everyone to march with them. There are two poster-and-prep nights on Sunday 5/29 and Wednesday 6/2. The details are on their website. The walk begins at 11 a.m. in the Thompson Center Plaza and the after-parties start at 3:30 p.m. The email I received states,

SlutWalk is for everyone: singles, couples, parents, sisters, brothers, friends. People of any age, race, gender identification and sexual orientation are welcome! Come walk, roll, strut, holler and stomp. Wear your favorite slut clothes and bring your favorite slut sign.

But the website assures that you can dress however you want, as uncovered or as completely covered as you prefer.

It sounds like fun, but I won't be in Chicago that weekend. June 4th is my ex-boyfriend's wedding, remember? But I will definitely join these walkers in spirit, since Robert and Nidia are having an evening wedding in New York City and I probably won't have an escort.

Gina's Graduation Cake

2011-05-22T10:09:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my friend Gina (the one who gave me the great advice on the wedding I'm going to) had a graduation party. Gina, congratulations on joining the ranks of the masters degree holders (ahem).

I enjoyed making her graduation cake. She likes different kinds of cake, so I made the bottom layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting and the top layer chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.

Please note: this cake was entirely store bought, with boxes of mix and tubs of ready-to-spread frosting. All I did was assemble it. I consider a cake truly homemade when I've made every part of it from baking chocolate, sticks of butter, cups of sugar, etc. This was more of a pre-fab cake.

I have some cake decorating bags with different tips. My cake decorating technique is to write the message and then if I still have frosting in the bag, I change the tip and start making blobs. I don't do flowers, so I just call them blobs. I like to think that the homemade quality of the decorating makes up for the pre-fab ingredients.

But it was a big hit and the guests did an excellent job of almost finishing it by the time I left the party (great party, too). I brought the top right corner home for my husband who polished it off when he got home from work last night around midnight.

I love baking and used to do it all the time before wheat became hard for me to digest. Such is my middle age. Once I made the connection between wheat and pain, I got rid of all my baking ingredients and now I only buy enough ingredients for a specific project. And I only make those items when I'll be leaving the house with them immediately and delivering them to someone else.

Gina, enjoy your new mastery of the world.

Go ahead and judge for we shall not be (today)

2011-05-21T10:15:00.001-05:00

http://www.smh.com.au/world/rapture-deadline-passes-world-still-here-20110521-1eycn.html

Maybe next time.

Although it's pretty dark in Chicago right now...maybe it's still coming to limited areas?

The Rapture - May 21, 2011

2011-05-19T08:03:00.002-05:00

If you want to count the minutes to the rapture, you can watch the clock at We Can't Know.com. It looks like it'll hit the Midwest at around 7:00 p.m. our time. I figure, if I don't make it past the date, then I'm not going to my friend's wedding in New York on June 4th. But if there really are 153 days of hell on earth that follow the Rapture, well, I'm already going to be in New York City, so I doubt it'll make much difference to me.

End Polio Now in Pakistan

2011-05-17T21:58:00.003-05:00

In advance of immunization activities taking place throughout Pakistan this month, Rotary International's Pakistan National PolioPlus Committee produced a social mobilization music video that shows the story of a girl who is a polio survivor. The song is called "Do Boond" or “Two Drops,” by Salar Khoso, a young singer and is airing on nine channels in Pakistan. View the video (I don't know how to embed it).

Don't lose weight for a wedding

2011-05-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

How many people reading this have been the ex-girlfriend, attending the wedding of a former boyfriend? How often does it happen and how much time usually goes by between the end of the former relationship and the wedding? In this case, 18 years. Yes, we kept in touch for that long. Anyone else stay friends with an ex for that long?

He came to my wedding, too, which happened 15 years into the post-relationship period (I would call that period a friendship, except that for the first three years of it we weren't ready to be friends yet, so there was a lot of radio silence). Yes, we both got married for the first time in our 40's, in the slow lane of the relationship highway (for a long time I couldn't bring myself to leave the on-ramp).

Robert will actually be the first ex whose wedding I attend, so I'll finally find out how that feels. One thing I know: I probably wouldn't handle this wedding well if I were not already married. How he managed to attend mine in a single state, I'll never know. I figure it must have to do with being a guy who doesn't measure his worth by a wedding ring, but I try not to think about it. Robert's self-esteem was always stronger than mine, but then the self-esteem of Winnie-the-Pooh's Eyore was always stronger than mine.

I've been spending extra time at the gym in preparation for this June 4th wedding because my desire to avoid stereotyped clichés isn't stronger than my concern about appearance. Unfortunately, some personal life stressors unrelated to this event have my carb cravings up, so I've actually gained weight in the past couple of weeks. Damn.

I was complaining about this to my friend Gina, who gave me the most brilliant way to look at it: she encouraged me to eat carbs as a gift to the bride. Of course! I'm an ex-girlfriend and Nidia and I are going to meet for the first time on her wedding day, so why the heck do I want to look good? The competition is over and we both won, I with my Robert and she with hers. This day is all about her being the most beautiful one in sight, so I've decided to indulge my serial cereal servings in the name of supporting the future wife of my good friend.

Also the world might be ending this year, so everybody, eat!

End Polio Now

2011-05-13T20:30:00.007-05:00

Yeah, it's a freakish picture and the program couldn't fit my whole name at the bottom, but I'm trying to make a statement. Rotary International recently launched its latest public relations campaign to bring attention to its 26-year fight against polio, a disease without a cure that can cause paralysis and death.

Yes, polio still exists, even though we have a vaccine that prevents it. The last endemic case in the U.S. was in 1979, but polio still rages on in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India. Well, not so much India. They've actually only had one case of polio in 2011 and are on track to wipe it out soon.

But it's still a serious problem since these remaining polio-endemic countries export the virus to other countries that were previously polio-free (endemic means that the virus transmission has never been interrupted). Because of such exportations, there are currently also polio cases in countries such as Angola, Chad, Sudan and the Democratic of Congo. You might also have heard about the polio outbreak in Tajikistan last year, which is just north of Afghanistan.

And if polio can cross borders just as easily as people do, that means it can go anywhere. If polio immunizations aren't maintained at very high levels throughout a population, one case can turn into hundreds or more.

Have you heard about American parents who are increasingly turning down vaccinations for their children? That's how it starts. If enough Americans (or any group) stops immunizing against a disease, then an outbreak of that disease is only one plane ride away.

Rotary International and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) have wiped out polio in 99% of the world since 1985. The remaining 1% - contained areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India - are proving to be quite the b&%*@ to immunize fully. But it has to be done. If we stop advancing on the polio virus, we'll go back to hundreds of thousands of children suffering from it a year. That includes paralysis and death.

I like to say that you can't cure families, you can only prevent them. The same is true for polio. Once you have it, any damage it does is permanent. We have to finish the job of eradicating it.

Right now the two biggest challenges to polio eradication are government commitment and money. We need the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India to step up and prioritize their polio immunization goals. For most of us in the rest of the world, there isn't a whole lot we can do about that, but we can help with the second problem.

Currently the GPEI is millions of dollars short of meeting its budget for 2012. If you're so inclined, you can give them some money. If not, you can help spread the word with your own This Close ad (which will be less creepy than mine, I hope). And if neither of those appeal to you, just remember that vaccinating your child against a disease is really not optional as long as the disease exists anywhere on the planet.

The International Museum of Surgical Science

2011-05-09T21:51:00.004-05:00

So, I spent Mother's Day afternoon at the International Museum of Surgical Science (IMSS). It was fascinating, but some of the grisliest stuff I've ever seen. They currently have an exhibit that is traveling around called Our Body. It's a display of preserved cadavers. Well, not the skin and outer layers, but the muscle and bone of dead people, with tendons and veins colored in. Some are posed, some are sliced. Mostly they had the heads removed, but a couple bodies had the heads still on and the faces were corpse-like and disturbing.

There was a room about human gestation with a series of see-through containers on a table that held actual dead embryos at different stages of development, from 2 months to 8 months. It was fascinating to see the teeny tiny hands and arms and legs and feet. A two-month-old fetus really does have a formed body, but no consciousness. I stared and stared. There's a warning outside this room that tells people not to go in if they are sensitive about this subject, and to keep children with them at all times.

Oh, yeah, the IMSS is quite an experience. Not for the squeamish at all. I ended up going with a friend who lives near there. She's got a strong stomach. My husband, who can't even watch someone get an injection on tv, should never go near it. Do you think you would?

Happy Day to All Women Who Raise Children

2011-05-08T08:56:00.004-05:00

On Mother's Day I appreciate National Public Radio for recognizing the millions of women around the world who don't raise children of their own, but have a big role in the lives of other children, related or unrelated. Take a look at their story on Melanie Notkin (what a great last name for someone who isn't having a family of her own) called Calling All 'Cool Aunts': It's Time to Get 'Savvy.'

Spooky Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T06:59:00.012-05:00

It's Mother's Day and my husband will be working in a very busy restaurant all day. I'll be visiting my mother later this month and my friends are all with their mothers, so I'm thinking of taking myself to the creepiest museum in Chicago: The International Museum of Surgical Science. I've got a two-for-one pass (tickets are $22 each), but no one to go with. No problem. I'll just go up to the first museum-goer I see and offer them an $11 ticket if they'll say they're my guest. I never stay home because I can't find a friend to go with. I can usually find a friend wherever I'm going, at least a temporary one who serves the purpose.

I'm looking forward to seeing who takes their mom to the Museum of Surgical Science today. I expect the museum will be full of those of us without Mother's Day plans and those who hope their moms enjoy preserved cadavers, ancient skull-boring tools and Rotary International's End Polio Now exhibit. I don't know about them, but I plan to take my time wandering through it all.

Thus will some of us muddle through this holiday.

End of the World: 5/21/2011

2011-05-07T19:50:00.003-05:00

If this is true, I'm spending the next two weeks digging into chocolate sundaes, buttercream layer cakes and a lot of Lactaid.

Star Wars Day

2011-05-04T19:52:00.002-05:00

Would someone get this walking carpet out of my way!

(What's your favorite Star Wars quote?)

An Un-Mother's Day Party

2011-04-28T06:38:00.015-05:00

I am a 44-year-old Mexican American woman who has lots of friends, but most of them have never been married. Also, most of my friends are not mothers. I somehow manage to seek out peers who have not followed the socially prescribed life path.

Sunday, May 8th is Mother's Day in the United States, but this Sunday, I'm having a luncheon party for those of us who will not be celebrated as mothers on the 8th. Mother-reverence is universal and sadly, so is the devaluing of non-mothers. Many people believe that women with children are more important than women without them, especially those of us who chose not to have them. Our lives are considered less productive, less meaningful, less full of love and joy. Women who have not become mothers are seen as sadder, emptier people who have failed to achieve our prime mission in life.

I don't believe it. I celebrate myself and all my women friends who are not mothers, whether it's because we haven't had kids yet, have chosen not to or are undecided. There are hundreds of ways to give birth to dreams, projects, creative pursuits, careers and even ourselves. I have a full life without room for a baby, but I feel the pressure and judgment of a society that sees my uterus as "barren." For my friends who feel similarly, this Sunday's celebration is for us.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T00:33:00.001-05:00

I'm re-posting this photo from last year's Easter post because it's a party cake in the shape of an instrument of horrible torture and death. And could there possibly be more frosting on this thing? What a festive-grim holiday.

Happy Easter! Fight the grimness!

"You only live once"

2011-04-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

Bob the Husband: "Honey, you only live once."
Me: "If I'm lucky."

Easter will be better than bad!

2011-04-21T20:23:00.006-05:00

I don't like Easter. It seems to me like the sad little cousin of Christmas, destined to live in the shadow of the biggest American holiday. Easter has no compelling and uplifting narrative, like the story of Jesus' birth. Instead it has the story of Jesus' torture and murder, which has a happy ending that never really felt happy to me. Jesus is resurrected, which means he lives forever, but the apostles still go into hiding and build the new Christian church without him. It feels like a lonely ending to me.

Each year I try to find a way to spend this sad (to me) little holiday. This year my big plan is to volunteer. Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly serves Chicagoans who are over the age of 70 and have no friends or family in the area. They don't target the economically impoverished, but rather those whose souls are starved for companionship. LBFE provides visitors for people who never get any, celebrations for holidays and birthdays that would otherwise be spent alone and social opportunities so that elders can build a social network with each other. It's all about connection and companionship, which is pretty much the focus of my whole life. I'm hoping it's a good fit.

This Sunday is the big Easter party. I went through the volunteer orientation last month and had my background check done. They didn't find that I'm an international assassin or anything, so I'll be serving dinner to countless elders who have been escorted to a local church for food, music and -- I'm hoping -- cake. I love parties and hosting people. The one thing I always enjoyed about working as a server in a restaurant was having guests and treating them well.

As a middle-aged person who lives far from family, I have almost no experience with old people, but I'm hopeful things will go well. At any rate, as long as I'm part of a party, it'll be better than sitting at home and trying to forget what day it is.

Everything doesn't happen for a reason

2011-04-17T11:12:00.002-05:00

Do people really believe that nothing in the world happens without some master plan behind it? Are all these people who say "Everything happens for a reason" talking about a god or some mystical dance of the allness of life or fate? And why do they think I want to hear about it?

Yes, everything does happen for a reason: it's cause and effect. The reason I got the parking space right in front of the restaurant is that some woman decided to pull out of that space exactly five seconds before I drove up. The reason my friend just happened to take a long trip with her dad exactly three months before he passed away is that that was when she finally scraped up the money to do it. I'll buy the cause-and-effect connection.

But I don't know what to do when I explain some challenge I'm facing and someone says to me, "Well, everything happens for a reason!" I imagine they think they're being comforting and optimistic, but they're assuming that I share their belief that there is a bigger purpose for everything and I don't. It's presumptuous and it irritates me, but I usually let it go.

What I have trouble ignoring is when someone says, "Well, I guess the Universe is sending you this," blah, blah, blah. Now they're ascribing agency and intention to some entity they're calling "the Universe" and that sounds even more to me like a spiritual belief system that has nothing to do with my beliefs. I want to say, "Uh, look. I don't believe in this universe that thinks and does things, okay?" Sometimes I do say something like that, but I wish I didn't have to.

Clearly, even though huge amounts of therapy and the correct anti-depressant have finally brought me peace, happiness and self-appreciation, I'm still an atheist. My personality isn't completely different, although I am more tolerant of dogs now.

Middle-age starts around 36

2011-04-10T08:04:00.004-05:00

At the age of 44, I know I am middle-aged. I don't have a problem with this. It's only logical: middle-aged means you're roughly halfway through your life. In fact the next time someone tries to argue that being in our 40s -- or even late 30s -- is not middle-aged, I will say, "How long are you planning to live? Unless it's at least 110 years, you're middle-aged."

Punto fin.

Was I bilingual even before I was bilingual?

2011-04-08T11:12:00.002-05:00

I'm excited about an NPR article called "Being bilingual may boost your brain power," but not because of what the article says about bilingual children having stronger executive control systems in their brains, making it easier for them to focus on what's relevant and block out irrelevant information. I'm excited because reading and re-reading this article finally gave me insight into my own dubious language abilities.

My parents' first language was Spanish, but mine was English. I was born in California in 1966 and my parents made sure that when my sister and I got to school, we'd be able to fluently communicate in English with the teachers. They did a great job.

But maybe they did it too well. My parents spoke Spanish to each other occasionally, but ours was an English-speaking household. My mother sometimes had me read from Spanish books and carefully taught me how to pronounce "tortilla" and "abuelita," so that I grew up with an excellent Spanish accent, but no ability to hold a conversation in it.

In high school I finally began to learn Spanish along with everyone else who'd always wished they could speak another language. My classmates assumed my good grades resulted from me being a native Spanish speaker, but that was dead wrong. I knew about three full sentences and several random words of Spanish before freshman year and that was it. I was learning everything right along with all the other English-speakers.

Besides those years of strictly academic Spanish, I have spoken it very little. Who would I speak it with? My world has always been white, English-dominated and in the American mainstream. Every school I've attended had a tiny number of Latinos, none of whom spoke Spanish (at least not in front of others). I'm an American with a typical American's need to speak other languages: zero. Like most Americans, I got my grades in Spanish class and never thought about those vocabulary words again.

So why can I still hold a conversation in it, decades after my last grammar quiz? Why do I always find it in my back pocket, ready to go, whenever I have no choice but to speak Spanish? If all I got was four years in high school, why was I (at the age of 44) so comfortable speaking Spanish for two weeks in South America last summer?

It's got to be the childhood I spent hearing my parents speak their native tongue, even though I had no idea what they were saying. Somehow, even though I swear I didn't know Spanish until I was 14, the language of my parents must have gotten into my baby brain, so that later when I began inserting the vocabulary and conjugations, it all fit right into some kind of predetermined cubby holes.

Is that possible? Can a language be programmed into you before you even know it? That's all I can figure since speaking a foreign language is a "use it or lose it" skill that I've kept even though I never use it. And with that assumption, I have thanked my parents for all the time they spent speaking Spanish around me, even if they weren't speaking it to me.

Dog-lover/Dog-tolerant

2011-04-05T21:12:00.007-05:00

Last week Bob did some dog-sitting. He loves dogs. I don't love them, but I'm dog-tolerant and knew this would make Bob happy. Coco wasn't very interested in yoga, especially cat pose. She just liked sitting on my mat.

Sadly, Coco has gone home now.

U.S. Income Tax Day: April 18

2011-04-03T15:01:00.002-05:00

It feels SO good to already have our taxes filed (you can hate me)!

Third Anniversary

2011-03-26T20:00:00.004-05:00

On March 25, 2011 Bob and I celebrated two years of wedded bliss and one year of crap. 2010 was awful, mainly because my depression really kind of sank our household for a while, but also because of Bob's surgery, my challenging first trip out of the U.S. and other problems.

But 2010 is over, thank god, and now I feel better than ever! Bob gave me a dozen beautiful two-toned pink roses and diamond earrings. I don't understand how I managed to land the best husband in the world. I tell him how bewildered I am by how good he is. He just shrugs and takes the compliment in stride.

I don't want children

2011-03-20T08:42:00.003-05:00

It occurs to me that anyone who has just started reading my blog might wonder why I have chosen to stay child-free. The reasons appear in a post I wrote over five years ago, at the age of 39. Take a look. This post also contains the phrase "at the overripe-and-only-good-for-soup age of 39," which now offends me (and I apologize), but which I still find humorous.

But if you don't like clicking, I'll summarize:

1. Not interested in the lifestyle (devoting all time/energy/money to a child and all the stuff that children need)
2. I don't like being needed by others.
3. Don't think I'd make a good mother (please don't try to argue. This is completely subjective, obviously)

I also submit the following articles which sort of back me up on the lifestyle reason:

Kid Crazy: Why We Exaggerate the Joys of Parenthood - Discussion of the myth that children make you happier than you were before.

Child-Free by Choice - Studies suggest that a child-free marriage might be more satisfying for some because the arrival of children often creates a crisis for the couple.

I'd also like to add that I believe that life is very challenging, if not full of suffering, and I just don't have the heart (guts? ego?) to bring someone into the world. I didn't ask to be here and no one's asking me, so I'll just leave it be.

(Also, as far as I can tell, every single mother on the planet worries about being a bad mother and I have enough to worry about just living my own life.)

Heart Attack Grill: "Taste Worth Dying For!"

2011-03-15T21:57:00.003-05:00

Have you heard of Heart Attack Grill in Arizona? The founder and owner, Jon Basso, used to work for Jenny Craig, encouraging people to eat well and slim down. According to the interview he did with Nightline a couple of weeks ago (you can watch it here), he is completely in favor of Americans being healthy, but because we really aren't listening, he's decided to use a completely different strategy: encouraging us to kill ourselves with grease and sugar until we finally get the message that we should not be eating this way.

What way? The menu of the Heart Attack Grill is mostly burgers, fries and shakes. It's disgusting from what I can tell. But Basso seems to be telling us, in effect, something like, You want this crap? You want it? Here, eat it all and see how long you live. In fact, he even offers free meals to those who weigh more than 250 pounds. If you get on their scale, prove you're a heavyweight and stay that way, you eat free for the rest of your life.

But that's not the deal you might think it is. Heart Attack Grill's 29-year-old, 550-pound spokesperson died earlier this month. But at least he never paid for his Quadruple Bypass Burgers or Flatliner Fries.

I don't know if Basso is just a hypocritical businessman, making himself rich with this gimmick or if he seriously believes this reverse psychology will finally shift American eating habits. But I do think it's a fascinating approach: helping obese people stuff themselves with crap until we finally make the link between grease and heart failure and stop eating that way.

His next Heart Attack Grill will open in Texas.

SSOW is better than FB

2011-03-12T10:41:00.003-06:00

I have recently discovered the website Secret Society of Women. Of course, anyone can go on it and look around (for you boys who are reading) and I imagine there are men who register and pretend to be women just to get in on the conversations. But it really seems to be mostly women who want to pool information, get advice, celebrate good news, commiserate over regrets and mistakes, dish about pop culture or just see if anyone else feels the same way they do about things like family, jobs, food, marriage, etc.

It was started by Lisa Ling and someone else and I heard about it on NPR. It's much better than Facebook because on SSOW (do you love that acronym?) people rarely post about ridiculous things that just waste my time (being completely subjective here. Just my opinion!).

On SSOW there's always an interesting conversation going on with many threads in many categories. But it's not a chat room; it's just lots of postings. Just a few of the categories are aging, assault & abuse, fears & phobias, health, loneliness, parenting, resentment, sex, singlehood. There are many, many, so check it out and let me know what you think. But I'm really interested in women's opinions on this, not men's (go ahead, call me sexist).

Child-free by choice

2011-03-05T17:11:00.004-06:00

I've noticed a change in how people respond to my statement, "I don't have kids." When I was in my 20's and 30's, people took this comment in stride, maybe because I seemed young enough to still have children or maybe because they knew I wasn't married, so it seemed right that I not be a mother yet. But now that I'm solidly in my mid-40's and finally married, my statement gets silence. I've realized that I now look like a tragic figure unless I follow "I don't have kids" with words such as "and that's by choice."

I could have done that before, but I always thought that saying, "Oh, I don't have kids because I chose not to," would make me sound militant or ideological. I didn't want to start a debate or seem critical of those who have kids. But now I see that people assume that a 44-year-old married woman who never had kids must have some sad story. Maybe I had a child who died. Maybe I was unable to get pregnant. Maybe I had children, but lost them in a custody battle. Maybe my children were taken by the state when I couldn't kick the meth. Although, I guess if those last two were true, I wouldn't say that I didn't have kids at all.

Anyway, in response to "Do you have kids?" I am trying to train myself to say, "No, my husband and I chose not to." I figure that's even better than "I'm child-free by choice" because it adds the authority of a MAN. A woman alone deciding not to have children -- and a Mexican American woman at that -- is crazy, right? But if her husband agrees, then it seems a bit a more sane.

I'm also realizing that I might want to avoid the phrase "child-free by choice" because it seems to be the name of a whole demographic (mostly women as far as I can tell) who are rather controversial. Or maybe I'm being wimpy by not entering the fray. This video on the blog www.momversation.com indicates that mothers feel some measure of offense at what the child-free blogs say. The mothers apparently feel some animosity and judgment directed toward them and their kids from us child-free people.

I can't say whether that's true since I haven't read much child-free opinion, but I did glance at this blog which looks pretty good: Sebastyne's musings. What I can say in response to the video is that it sounds like a lot of hand-wringing over nothing. It's not like child-free people have any true power to make people stop having kids or can come into your home and make you do certain things with the kids you have. What are they so defensive about?

I think it's just another variation of the conflict between women who have kids and women who don't have kids. I've heard it before centered on the workplace: women resenting each other for perceived freedoms that they don't have because they either have or don't have children. It's sad and it's pointless.

The video did indicate, however, that some mothers recognize the criticism that child-free by choice women face because we chose not to have kids. I appreciate that because sometimes I feel like women like me -- middle-aged, sexuality fading, didn't have kids, didn't want them -- are more invisible in society. Without the mantle of Mother or the appeal of youth, my value seems doubtful to others and will probably decrease from here.

Of course, I won't complain out loud about this since people might say that I made my decision to not have kids and now must live with it. Funny, how no one ever thinks that about women whose children grow up to kill people or rob banks or become drug dealers. No one responds with, "Well, you chose to have kids. Now you have to live with it." Well, I respond that way, but not out loud.

Anyway, maybe it's a new frontier to explore: the child-free by choice community. What I don't understand is why, with problems like overpopulation and poverty, no one's actually thanking us for not procreating. Without sons or daughters of my own, there's more for their children!

When I clean the toilet

2011-02-27T17:09:00.004-06:00

When I clean the toilet, I close my eyes. I go into a deep state of denial about what I'm doing and imagine that I'm scrubbing an already sparkling clean toilet. I work hard on every inch to guarantee that when I do open my eyes, all I'll see is a gleaming surface.

I make sure to scrub the underside of the bowl and the entire base, especially before parties. I always fear someone getting sick and kneeling before our toilet or worse, lying next to it, and seeing a dirty outside of the toilet. I can't allow that to happen.

Once I was crouched next to the bowl, working on the base, when I realized that in my effort and concentration, I had allowed the tip of my tongue to stick out of my mouth. It was inches from the surface of the bowl! I pulled it in.

Lifting depression

2011-02-18T13:45:00.008-06:00

Here is how I'm different: I'm smiling more, laughing more and talking more. I sleep well and my daytime energy is great. I worry less, even while my personal life has recently increased in stress. At times this new peace has been unsettling because I'm not used to feeling such lightness and joy. Happiness feels foreign. This kind of humor reminds me of falling in love or the way I felt right after the ayurvedic panchakarma treatment in 2009. That made me feel really happy like this afterwards, but it didn't last. If only this could last!

I told my husband, "Do street drugs make you feel better than this? Because if they do, I don't need 'em!" When people ask me "How are you?" I answer from the heart, "I'm good!" I haven't truly meant that in years. I've always thought that people who go around heartily and cheerfully greeting the world were bizarre freaks of nature, but I'm turning into one of them.

This new me is a result of eight intensive months of EMDR treatment, using EFT, talk therapy and finding the medication that works for me. I wonder how my life might have been different, damn it, if I had put this particular combination together for myself years ago.

Here is my advice: if one anti-depressant doesn't work for you (eg. no effect, bad effects, etc.), keep trying different ones until you find what really works for you! Don't let the doctor say there are no more options. I kept saying I needed something else until we finally got it right. Yay, me!

Life is good. That's a simple statement that countless people spew casually or wear on their clothing, but I have never in my life believed it. I was sure they were stupid or deluded, but now I might be one of them! If being stupid or deluded also means feeing happy, I'll take it. I don't care because I feel good. This particular combination of therapies and meds have finally shifted my former view of myself and my life. Hard work with an EMDR therapist has finally gotten me, at the age of 44 and a half, to finally believe I'm good. I don't deserve the worst. Life doesn't always suck. I don't suck. I know those negative beliefs were never true, but you couldn't have convinced me of it. EMDR finally got me to see it on my own.

I am so grateful for this. The second half of my life looks so much better than the first half! (If I live to 89.)

Great, they plowed our street. Now we can get our car out!

2011-02-04T18:55:00.001-06:00

Snowmageddon!

2011-02-02T13:08:00.002-06:00

It was still coming down at 1 p.m.

Yes, that's our car I'm standing next to.

White like heaven

2011-02-01T21:56:00.002-06:00

BLIZZARD! This is why I moved to the Midwest in 1993. Oh, yeah.

I experienced my first blizzard in Ithaca, New York in 1993. It was great. My second was here in Chicago in 1999, but by coincidence I was very ill and spent the whole time in bed. This is my first exciting snowstorm of the new century. I would have been disappointed if this one had passed us by.

I've stocked up on food and my company gave us the day off work tomorrow. I've got my Kindle plus a paper book, so I'm ready for a day of staying inside. I love staying inside. I love winter.

To Whom It May Concern

2011-01-30T14:15:00.001-06:00

Dear East Coast,

Please stop hogging all the snow.

Sincerely,
Midwest

Bloggers mustn't fool ourselves

2011-01-26T19:38:00.003-06:00

I started my blog in June 2004 because I read an article on blogging and discovered that I fit the criteria of a good blogger: I spent hours in front of a computer every day and liked to write.

It was probably presumptuous to think that my blog would be interesting to anyone but me, but I anticipated a large audience that would find it riveting. This turned out to be a good expectation because, while it might not have been true, it kept me from putting anything on my blog that I wouldn't want everyone to see. It kept me from making a mistake that many bloggers, and now many Facebook users, make.

The mistake is assuming that my posts will go unseen by the people who I don't want reading my stuff. I've seen it happen: someone starts a blog and either does his/her best to keep it anonymous, or puts her name on it, but assumes that certain people will never see it. And then a certain person comes across the blog and the blogger has to face the hard reality that this person (relative? ex-lover?) that she would never expose herself to, has read everything.

I'm sure it's a horrible feeling, but it's completely avoidable. I've read posts by bloggers who stormed about how wrong it was of such-and-such a person to read her blog, apparently forgetting that once you post to the Internet, with no restrictions on your post, it's in the public domain. That creep you once dated and kicked out of your life can lurk in the shadows of your blog, lapping up your every emotion and opinion, for as long as you keep posting. Likewise, even though you might think your boyfriend never goes online, if you're writing about him, he will. Believe me, he will, maybe tipped off by a mutual acquaintance who goes online regularly.

I think you can only avoid this by either getting a restricted blog (and only give the password to people you trust) or not even trying to post behind anyone's back.

In 2004, I told everyone about my blog: parents, family, co-workers, dates, friends, acquaintances and anyone whose email address I had. I never write anything that I wouldn't be comfortable with everyone seeing (my mother, my boss, all ex-lovers, my creepiest neighbor, everyone). I keep this wide audience in my head at all times.

The other rule I keep is about who I blog about. For the most part, I only blog about myself. Occasionally I'll blog about someone else, but I usually ask that person's permission first. If you go through all my posts over the years, you'll see that I rarely identify anyone in my blogs. I think I've occasionally blogged about someone I saw on the train, but if I can't identify them, I doubt you can. If my husband is in the post, I definitely share it with him before I publish it (including, of course, photos of him). And if I had children, I wouldn't blog about them at all (although my feelings of insecurity as a mother would be okay). I consider children to be under the age of consent. Since a child can't conceptualize being on the Internet -- where nothing can ever be erased and all can be accessed forever -- a child can't really give consent to being portrayed on the Internet. Even if it were my kid, I wouldn't do it.

These rules might make for a claustrophobic blog that rarely leaves the inside of my head, but I'm at peace with them. Maybe the tight, inner focus of a lot of blogs indicates that many bloggers follow similar rules. They're good rules.

Regina Rodriguez

2011-01-24T22:01:00.004-06:00

Back when I decided to get serious about music, I hired someone to build a website that told people my music. I carefully wrote the copy and gave him the photographs and lyrics to publish. It was 2001 so I didn't really know what I was doing. As early websites often resembled flyers transmitted electronically, so was my website very text-heavy with little actual music. I think I just had some soundclips on there. And lots of the color pink.

It was reginarodriguez.com, which was available and free when I first grabbed it. But I wasn't a consistent musician and I let the domain name lapse when I began to lose faith in my art. When I tried to get it back, someone was squatting on it and wanted hundreds of dollars for it.

Who would have expected the name Regina Rodriguez to be in demand?

I let it go and created another website using regrodriguez.com, but then in 2008 I gave up the whole music thing and let that go, too. Only my blog has stayed constant, perhaps indicating where my true interest was all along.

Just now I looked at what comes up when I google my spinster name "Regina Rodriguez." It turns out another Regina Rodriguez has managed to acquire my old domain name. Good for her. I haven't quite figured out the focus of her blog. The more recent posts aren't very text-heavy, but it's good to see that reginarodriguez.com is active again. Anyway it's not my name anymore, so I wish her the best!

P.S. Today is my half-birthday. I am exactly 44 and a half years old today and I had an appointment to get bifocals.

Cracking

2011-01-15T12:54:00.000-06:00

Maybe I am too hard on myself.

Growing old and staying thin

2011-01-07T21:21:00.000-06:00

We all know by now that as we age it gets easier to put on pounds and harder to lose them. This is why I sometimes stare in wonder at thin women in their 60's and above. I think, "How does she do it? If our metabolism drops to zero when we get older, how is it that everyone over the age of 50 isn't a roly poly ball with arms and legs?"

I think I might know part of the secret now: poor digestion. As we get older, our digestive system isn't as strong and we can't eat the way we used to without paying a higher price. And oh, it can be a VERY high price.

This was the first December of my 44-and-a-half-year-old life that I didn't dive into every cookie tray and chocolate assortment with abandon. This was the first Christmas season that I attended a festive, food-centered party without eating one thing the whole night. How was I able to do these incredible things? I did them with a stomach that caused me extreme pain every damn time I over did it. That night that I didn't eat anything, I arrived at the party with a stomach ache left over from the weekend. I spent entire days in December feeling miserable with digestive distress.

But as awful as it was to pass up all those goodies that I only see once a year, the one positive thing is that I did not put on the pounds. I came out of New Year's Day at the same weight that I went into Thanksgiving. Incredible.

I suppose I should say, "Thanks, weak miserable digestive system. You saved me a lot of heartache and having to lose the same pounds all over again." But it's hard to feel appreciative of a stomach that no longer accepts dairy products without pain, tends to complain about wheat products and processed food in general, and doesn't let me sleep easily if I've eaten past about 8:30 at night.

I sometimes stare down the dim corridor of the rest of my life and wonder if I really have to finish it without any more cheese sandwiches or double-crust pies. It's best if I don't think about it and just focus on how peacefully my stomach goes about its business if I only ask it to digest protein and vegetables.

I really don't like sunshine

2011-01-04T06:21:00.005-06:00

Winter is my favorite season, followed by autumn, when the days get short and the darkness takes over. This year Chicago got a white Christmas with inches of snow falling on Christmas night. It must have been beautiful.

But I wouldn't know because I spent Christmas Day in Florida. I left cold, picturesque Midwest for a sunny climate on Christmas Day. Of course, everyone I talked to about it envied me. Yes, I got clear skies and warm breezes for a few days, but I didn't want a break from below-freezing temperatures. People find this hard to believe. They think that if I live in Chicago, I must be delighted to escape the chill. Maybe this is what I should say to them:

Imagine a child who grows up in a bright and sunny part of the world. Their years growing up are spent in brightness and warmth, but also under extreme duress. The child has experiences that cause it to associate bright sunlight with pain and emotional isolation. Eventually the child grows up and moves away from this warm climate, finding comfort in a darker, colder part of the world that feels peaceful and safe.

Once these associations are in place -- sunshine and pain, darkness and comfort -- this person grows into an adult who avoids direct sunlight and relishes cloudy days and chilly temperatures. Yes, it's completely irrational and against human nature. It's inexplicable in any terms other than those of trauma and the way the mind makes connections.

Imagine such a person and you might begin to believe me when I say that I love gray winter days and nights that begin at 4 p.m. If you can really get your mind around it, you might even believe me when I say that I intensely dislike sunny climates, preferring the cold and darkness that cover my home in the Midwest, where I feel safe. This is where I want to be.

Happy December!

2010-12-20T08:32:00.001-06:00

December is my favorite month. I've been telling people that and I'm stunned by their response. Each person has replied, "Why?"

I don't understand this question. We are neck-deep in Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas goodies, Christmas parties and Christmas shopping, yet people wonder why December is my favorite month? Are they blind?

Or does Christmas not seem like a reason to enjoy December? Do these people maybe dislike Christmas and find the whole thing unpleasant? Have they not noticed the Santas and snowmen everywhere? Does Christmas hold their attention no more than ordinary television commercials? Why does anyone have to ask why December is my favorite month?

Well, it is. But I don't look forward to Christmas Day or even Christmas eve. I look forward to December itself. I'm holding on for December in September. I'm waiting for December in high July. I long for December in March. I start wishing it were December on January first.

Each time a fellow grownup says to me, "I can't believe it's already December!" I respond with, "Are you kidding? It took forever to get here. I've been waiting for December for months." No one gets any sympathy from me with, "Can you believe Christmas is Saturday?" My answer is, "Yes, I can because I've been closely paying attention to every single day leading up to it."

It's the whole month that I enjoy, so my enthusiasm begins on December first, as I think, "It's finally December! It's the month I wait for all year long!" I relish the single-digit dates of December, feeling a slight panic of loss on the 10th. As the month continues to slip away, I feel dismay that it's eventually going to end, but that feeling is balanced by the increasing saturation of the holiday through all aspects of our culture: decorations blanket the city, holiday programming takes over the TV, parties increase, the candy and homemade treats become a constant in my workplace. It becomes one never-ending festival.

For weeks now, each time I've passed a Christmas display or noticed branches outlined by little lights I revel, "It's Christmastime!" Having December 25th on the horizon is the dream come true that I've been holding since the previous winter. Because it's the whole season I relish, it can never start too early. Christmas commercials in October? Sure, let the festivities begin!

And yet, it's not December 25th that I'm focused on. As a grown-up, I don't have that childhood experience of Christmas Day bringing the excitement of wishes come true and proof of a benevolent being who brings just what I want. And I certainly don't cherish the day for any religious reasons. So December 25th has really just become a marker for me. December 25th is when the party ends. It's the weeks before that hold all the activity and anticipation, and isn't anticipation always better than release?

It is for me. I love a celebration and the way we do Christmas in the US, the big party happens well before the actual day. We spend weeks decorating and getting in the (shopping) mood for the holidays, mixing and stirring traditional imagery, idealized expectations, materialistic desire and consumer-oriented demonstrations of affection. Those weeks are when the real partying happens. Few people leave their decorations up much past New Year's Day and fewer yet have Christmas parties after the 25th. Even religious people don't have parties after Jesus has been born. It's all about the lead-up and nothing but a lot of after-Christmas sales happen on the downslope of December. Oh, yeah, and New Year's, but that's a completely different party.

So I enjoy December, all of it, right up until the radio stations stop playing Nat King Cole and the first trees get tossed out with the garbage. As my friends stock up on next year's Christmas cards and the best of the 50% off shelves, I renew my vigil and start looking forward to the return of December in eleven more months.

Merry Christmas!

Sugar

2010-12-19T21:10:00.002-06:00

Since my last post I have managed to keep my weight constant, which I consider good enough. At least I won't reach January having put back on the weight managed to lose.

But I'm facing, once again, my lifelong problem that never goes away: I can limit myself to vegetables, fruit, lean protein and healthy oils all week long, but I'm still a sugar addict. The days I spend avoiding sugar, wheat, grains, dairy and processed foods are simply days I manage to keep the lid on the addiction. An alcoholic who stays sober never loses her desire to drink; she just controls it. That's me with sweets.

I've known for about fifteen years that I'm addicted to sugar and it's been much worse than it is now. At least I've reduced the frequency and size of my indulgences. Can I keep doing that, making each slip-up smaller and smaller until it's a liveable habit? I don't know. I doubt addiction works that way.

Losing Weight During the Holidays

2010-12-09T21:26:00.012-06:00

This photo is from our Christmas party last week.

A Weight Watchers representative was explaining the benefits of the program to me last October. He said that most people gain weight during the holidays, but with Weight Watchers you can lose weight during the holidays. I found this very impressive, but wondered if I could do it without WW.

After a wretched summer and a not-much-better fall during which I gained a dozen pounds (even though I lost some of it, temporarily, in South America), I finally put down the cookies, the Hostess pies and the frosted cakes on Halloween night. On Monday, November 1st I got back on the wagon. This is my wagon:

1. Vegetables
2. Fruit
3. Meat
4. Beans
5. Nuts and seeds
6. Eggs
7. Fish
8. No processed foods
9. No sugar
10. No wheat or other grains
11. No dairy products
12. No alcohol

It's a way of eating that works for me and that I can peacefully maintain because things like dairy products and wheat give me stomach aches and I don't drink. It's not a diet I'd recommend for most Americans because most Americans are addicted to dairy, wheat and sugar. You have to start where you are.

I had a 24-day streak of healthy Regina-eating going by Thanksgiving. I took a break that weekend for some dessert after Thanksgiving dinner, then I got back on the wagon. I took another break for my Christmas party on December 4. Then I got back on the wagon.

It turns out that I can lose weight during the holidays, as long as I get back on that wagon in between each truly worthy indulgence. This means, of course, that I've been abstaining from piles of post-Halloween candy, the half-dozen desserts left over from my Christmas party and the countless opportunities to snack on sweets that I get while working in a big office building during the holidays.

That's a lot of abstaining, but I've done it with my Emotional Freedom Technique tapping and keeping my eye on the goal. My progress with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy has also helped a lot. Because the reasons I indulge in cookies, cakes and donuts are emotional, the way to overcome cravings has been to address those emotions directly.

So far I've been successful and have dropped about six pounds since Halloween. Losing weight during the holidays is possible. It just takes a lot of commitment, focus and keeping my priorities straight. We'll see if I can maintain it as I enter the most heavily sugared portion of December.

On Thanksgiving...

2010-11-25T08:27:00.001-06:00

I am grateful to feel grateful at all. This has been a very hard year and Bob and I weren't even dealing with financial crisis or losing a home or the failure of a business or anything like that. But obviously major surgery causes its own kind of stress. My depression depleted my ability to feel gratitude or optimism or even the patience it takes to answer, "How are you?" Now that depression is lifted so that I can appreciate what I have. I'm grateful for gratitude.

Today my husband and I will have our dream Thanksgiving: we'll go downtown for a nice dinner and just relax in a hotel, with no cooking or traveling. It's a DINK Thanksgiving (Double Income, No Kids). I wish for everyone their dream Thanksgiving, or at least a good one, or at least one from which they'll recover soon.

On the eleventh day of Thanksgiving..

2010-11-24T07:00:00.001-06:00

I'm very grateful to have a job, and a job I actually like.